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The colour wheel: mixing colours

Learn primary and secondary colours, mix new colours with paint or crayons, and make your own colour wheel.

Get the whole book: Drawing and craft for classes 3 to 5 (5 lessons, free to print)

Let us begin

The big idea

With only three paints, you can make many colours. It feels like magic! Let us find out which colours to mix to make orange, green and purple.

The three primary colours are red, yellow and blue. We cannot make them by mixing other colours. Every other paint colour comes from these three.

When we mix two primary colours, we get a secondary colour. Red and yellow make orange. Yellow and blue make green. Blue and red make purple.

A colour wheel puts the colours in a circle. Each secondary colour sits between the two primaries that make it.

Adding white makes a colour lighter. Adding a tiny bit of a dark colour makes it darker. Always add the dark colour a little at a time, because it is strong.

A simple colour wheelA circle divided into six sections: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple in order around the wheel. red orange yellow green blue purple
Secondary colours sit between the primary colours that make them.

Worked examples

See how it works

  1. Making orange

    Put a blob of red and a blob of yellow on a plate. Mix them with a brush. You get orange. More yellow makes a lighter, sunny orange. More red makes a deeper orange.

  2. Making green

    Mix yellow and blue. If you add more yellow, the green looks fresh like new leaves. If you add more blue, it looks darker like a deep forest.

  3. Making light colours

    Mix a little red with a lot of white and you get pink. Mix blue with white and you get a light sky blue.

Try it at home

Paper colour wheel

You will need

  • A sheet of paper
  • Red, yellow and blue paint or crayons
  • A plate or old lid
  • A brush
  • A round lid to trace

What to do

  1. Trace a circle on the paper and divide it into six equal slices like a pizza.
  2. Colour the three primary colours in alternate slices: red, yellow and blue.
  3. Mix red and yellow on the plate and paint the slice between them orange.
  4. Mix yellow and blue for the green slice, and blue and red for the purple slice.
  5. Label each slice with its colour name.

Ask a grown-up: An adult can supply washable paints and cover the table with old newspaper.

Practice sheet

Check what you learned

Write your answers in a notebook, or print this sheet and write on it. When you finish, mark your work with the answer key.

Practice sheet: The colour wheel: mixing colours (Classes 3-5, Drawing and craft)

  1. Name the three primary colours.
  2. Which two colours make orange?
  3. Which two colours make green?
  4. Which two colours make purple?
  5. What do we call colours made by mixing two primary colours?
  6. What do you add to make a colour lighter?
  7. Which secondary colour sits between red and yellow on the wheel?
  8. What happens if you add more blue to green?
  9. Can you make red by mixing other colours?
  10. You mix a lot of white with a little red. What colour do you get?

Answer key

Answers: The colour wheel: mixing colours

Do the practice sheet first, then check here. If an answer is different from yours, read the lesson again and try once more.

  1. Red, yellow and blue.
  2. Red and yellow.
  3. Yellow and blue.
  4. Blue and red.
  5. Secondary colours.
  6. White.
  7. Orange.
  8. The green becomes darker and bluer.
  9. No. Red is a primary colour.
  10. Pink.

What next

Keep learning

Get the whole book

All 5 drawing and craft lessons for classes 3 to 5 on one page, with every practice sheet and answer key, ready to print.

Drawing and craft for classes 3 to 5

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