You might’ve learned in school that mixing red and blue makes purple, and that would be correct. However, the most vibrant and chromatic purples aren’t usually the ones you can mix but often come from a base paint. In this article we will show many different paint combinations to demonstrate the various purples that can be mixed as well as those mixes compared to some common purple paints. Purple pigments and dyes are notably rare in nature, for example the pigment Tyrian purple is found in by processing thousands of shellfish. The resulting garments would be reserved for royalty due to a combination of time, material processing, and sumptuary laws. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the first synthetic purples were made. Pigments that we still use today, such as Carbazole Dioxazine, were first synthesized in the 1920’s for various industrial products, including paint.
While some might think it is the rarity in nature alone that contributes to this color not being easily mixed, the reason it’s harder to mix a purple color is due to the way mixing paint works. Briefly mentioned in the article, How to Mix Colors for Acrylic Painting, we learn that whenever two colors are mixed the overall chroma tends to decrease from the original colors. Meaning, that even if you use two colors with exceptionally bright chroma, you’re not going to have a mix that comes out just as vibrant.
For example, below there are three examples of paint combinations. 145 Cadmium Red Light mixed with the following: 135 Phthalo Turquoise, 127 Cerulean Blue, and 122 Ultramarine.
One might notice that the resulting colors are various shades of purple, but they tend to be a lot less vibrant than what one usually thinks of when they hear the word ‘purple’. This is truer still when we place purple and violet paints directly from the pot next to the mixed options. (181 Quinacridone Violet, 186 Medium Violet, and 147 Quinacridone Magenta).
I added some 118 Titanium white to show that even lightening the mixture doesn’t make the paint any bolder.
Of these colors I’d say, the combo of 145 Cadmium Red Light and 122 Ultramarine have the most visual chroma. So, I tried mixing various red shades into the Ultramarine to see if we could come up with any better variations. 122 Ultramarine Blue mixed with the following: 129 Quinacridone Red, 187 Pyrrole Red, and 150 Peach Tone. Here we’re seeing slightly better results especially between 122 Ultramarine and 129 Quinacridone Red.
However, once we compare the mixes again with the paints straight from the container visually the chroma winner is clear. It makes sense that the 181 Quinacridone Violet would be close to the 129 Quinacridone Red and 122 Ultramarine Blue combo since Quinacridone pigments tend to be similar.
In short, while mixing a nice purple is possible, making room on your palette for a vivid purple can be especially useful for adding variety. Especially if you’re making art that focuses on purple, these vivid paints are a great investment.