History

• In "Opticks" published in 1704, Sir Isaac Newton gave the world the seven primary colors he discovered in refracted light. He was not, however, a master of reflected colors. So that colors desired by artists could be mixed in paint that reflects light, artists of his time reduced the primary colors to three: red, yellow and blue. Near 1730, a German printer Jakob Le Bon first stated that subtractive color had an importance in making colors. Using the three primary color inks, he produced full-color prints. Society had begun to establish a theoretical system that had a primary color set close to Leonardo da' Vinci's red, yellow, blue and green seen in his "Ginevra de' Benci."
  
  

Color Seen in Paint

• Light is the source of color; white light has all the colors in Newton's spectrum from red to violet. Paints, like the tree leaves in nature, reflect a specific part of light to produce a color. The central idea in subtractive color theory is that paints and inks have pigments that absorb all colors in light except for the color seen by the eye. Painters are in need of a color theory that captures how colors truly mix their absorption abilities.
  
  

Painter's Color System

• Painters need mixed colors that sensibly represent any color found in life or conceived as an idea in the artist's imagination. Yet, a painter can not always have the desired color on hand. The resolution is a system of three pure primary colors that mix any desired color. The traditional color wheel has the three primary colors developed by painters after Newton's discovery. On the circular wheel, red, yellow and blue make a triangle. The secondary colors orange, green and purple are between the three primary colors. Black is a mix of all three primary colors.
  
  

Subtractive Mixing

• Colors can be mixed in a wide diversity of proportions to create many vivid colors. A secondary colors is mixed by using the two primary colors on each side of it on the color wheel; for example, red and yellow make orange. Once a painting color is chosen or conceived, the artist considers what colors in the light each primary color absorbs. Adding to yellow a small amount of blue diminishes the amount of yellow reflected.
  
  

Remember the Positive

• The idea that color theory for painting is subtractive does not reduce the importance of positive color in painting. Mixing paint is always like mixing yellow and blue. The first effect of adding a little blue is to add the blue light to the reflection that makes the yellow seen by the eye appear greenish.