How are red, yellow, and blue made for paint?

Moment of Um

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2023

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What does painting the most splendid sunset and the most radiant rainbow have in common? They both require lots of beautiful paint colors! We can blend colors to make orange, green, and purple, but how do we make primary colors like red, yellow, and blue? We asked color science professor Stephen Westland to help us find the answer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of um.
0:05.0	Moment of um.
0:07.0	Moment of um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm your host Cloud Monet, part-time painter, and full-time rainbow scavenger.
0:20.0	Um... Welcome to my studio. I'm working on a painting of a rainbow I spotted yesterday.
0:29.0	It was glorious, a true riot of colors.
0:35.0	You know, people often ask me how to paint the perfect rainbow.
0:38.8	It's really quite simple.
0:40.1	It all comes down to mixing the right colors.
0:43.2	First, mix a dab of red with a dollop of yellow paint to get a warm summery orange.
0:50.6	Then, smear a streak of blue into your yellow paint to get a cool grassy green.
0:57.0	Finally, combine red and blue in different ratios to create gorgeous indigos and violets.
1:04.4	And then you've done it, it's time to paint.
1:08.2	But I feel like I'm forgetting something.
1:11.9	Did I clean my brushes?
1:14.0	Feed the cat?
1:16.0	Put on pants?
1:18.0	Did I?
1:19.0	I didn't make my red, yellow, and blue paints.
1:22.0	I just used tubes I already had make my red, yellow, and blue paints.
1:22.9	I just used tubes I already had in my studio.
1:26.0	But I don't know how to make red, yellow, and blue.
1:29.5	Those are primary colors.
	...

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