What Color Does Pink and Green Make?

It’s time to add a wild update to our color mixing chart experiments. This time we shall do some hands-on investigations of the question: “What color does pink and green make?”

As background, my name is Lillie and I’m a teacher and artist who adores sharing my illustrations of the unexpected and beautiful results of mixing colors together — from what red and blue make, to the answer to: “Blue and brown make what color?”

Let us start our pink plus green exploration with my drawing of how different shades of these rich colors look when swirled together in paint form. Mmm… bubblegum plus lime candy!

Green + Pink = ?

To help predict what pink and green make, let’s take a step back and break down the “ingredients” of both of these colors.

Green is one of the secondary colors made by mixing primary colors in the RYB model; specifically, green is what blue and yellow make.

Meanwhile, pink is usually made by mixing red or magenta (what red and purple make) with white to lighten it.

Therefore, when you’re mixing green and pink, you’re actually mixing yellow, plus blue, plus red, plus white. Ah hah — this gives us a clue of what to expect as a result! See my illustration, below, for the answer…

Brown and Gray Results!

As you can see from my hands-on pigment-mixing experiments above, mixing pink with green makes a range of muddy, dusty browns and grays (or greys, if you’re British), depending which shades you start with! Why is that?

As you might recall from our lesson on what colors make brown, any time you mix all three primary colors — red, yellow, and blue — you get browns or even black! It stands to reason that the answer to this pink plus green inquiry is similar to that for our “What does red and green make?” quest — just with a little more white mixed in, via the pink, meaning that instead of dark brown brown and black, we get lighter tan-browns and gray.

But Wait… It’s Not That Simple

Sure, the basic colors resulting from the pink and green combination are browns and grays — but as you can see from my illustration above, there’s more nuance and variety than that. For example, if you have a slightly peach-colored pink as an ingredient, you’ll get more of a greenish-brown or olive color (what orange and green make).

Meanwhile, if your green “ingredient” is more of a blue-green teal, and/or your pink is more of a purple-magenta, the extra blue will mean the resulting color is a dusty mauve: a brownish, grayish purple. Wow!

What Color Does Pink and Green Make?

As you can see, the answer to, “What color does pink and green make?” is usually brown (though a lighter tan than the rich brown that red and green make), sometimes gray, and also possibly olive or mauve, depending on what your ingredient colors are. This is very different from the clear and jolly answer to “What color do pink and blue make?”

I hope this tutorial has been enjoyable and interesting! What colors (or colours, if you’re British) should we mix next??? Do share!

Want more? Check out Tertiary Colors and Intermediate Colors! You can also enjoy the surprising answer to, “Purple and brown make what color?”