Cyan, magenta and yellow are the new primary paint colors in town.
One of the first things most of us learned in art class was that red, yellow and blue are the primary colors. All other colors could be made from some combination of these three, we were told, plus black and white for tints and shades. We probably even remember mixing various amounts of red, blue and yellow together to make the secondary colors of orange, green and purple.
Except making purple was always a problem, wasn't it? Did anyone ever make a vibrant purple mixing red and blue together? No. It usually came out a sort of muddy eggplant color instead of the bright iris purple we were looking for. As artis Anna Evans shared in a recent Facebook post, "I used to get very frustrated trying to mix purples, they always came out the colour of dried blood. It was not purple." After hours of research on color theory, she added magenta to her palette and never looked back.
There's a reason for that. We've basically had the primary colors for pigments wrong.
Instead of red, yellow and blue being the primary colors for paints, magenta, yellow and cyan are more accurate. This isn't really a new idea—CMYK has been used for printing for over a century—but for most of us, the RYB = primary colors equation has practically been as unquestionable as 2+2=4.
Color theory can get a bit complicated, especially since color works differently with light (additive color) than it does with pigments (subtractive color), but in some ways this new color wheel simplifies things on both fronts.
The CMY color wheel (outside) with the older RYB color wheel (inside)
EugeGreco/Public Domain
The reason our red and blue paint mixing experiments always created muddy purple is because there's actually yellow in most red pigments. Yellow and magenta can actually be mixed to make red. In addition, cyan and magenta can be mixed to make blue, so the idea that nothing can make red or blue because they are primary colors isn't actually true.
What makes this color wheel simpler than the RYB one is that red, blue and green are the primary colors for light, while cyan, magenta, and yellow are secondary. For pigments, in the CMY color wheel, it's just the opposite. That's easier than trying to wrap your head around light colors being so different than pigments when it comes to primary and secondary colors; all you have to remember is that they're swapped.
If all of this sounds bunk and you're absolutely sure that red, blue and yellow must be the primary colors because that's what you learned and have always believed, check out artist Jazza's experiment in which he tries to make cyan and magenta out of red, blue and yellow. It's quite entertaining.
However, there is some controversy over this whole concept in the art world. While some have been thrilled to realize why their colors didn't always come out the way they wanted them to using the RYB color wheel and have found CMY to be much more color-mix friendly, there are arguments for not throwing the RYB baby out with the bathwater. It's not so much that it's entirely wrong as that our definition of primary colors might need a bit of revamping.
For a more in-depth and nuanced view of what primary colors actually are and why there are arguments for considering both RYB and CMY as primary colors, check out Florent Farges' excellent explanation of the whole primary color controversy here:
If there's one takeaway from all of this, it's that when it comes to pigments, yellow clearly reigns supreme. All hail the almighty yellow!
This article originally appeared on 3.19.24
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.