The complete guide to the colour green.

Examples of green shades.

Exploring the different shades of green and their names reveals just how varied the colour can be. Notably, each shade of green carries a distinct mood and application potential.

Some examples include:

• Apple green
• Turquoise
• Artichoke
• Asparagus
• Avocado
• Bright green
• Dark green
• Light green
• Olive green
• Dark pastel green
• Emerald
• Fern
• Forest green
• Hunter green
• Harlequin
• Lime green
• Pistachio

Complementary colours for green.

Green is widely considered one of the easiest colours to work with. A quick look at a colour wheel reveals its complementary pairings clearly, and Newton's colour wheel contains everything you need. A little basic colour wheel theory is all it takes to extract the right combinations.

Red and green.

Green sits opposite red on the colour spectrum, creating a high-contrast pairing that balances green's calming, lethargic quality against red's warmth and energy. That said, the best colour choices for accentuating green ultimately come down to personal preference. Some of the most effective pairings include:

• Green works with blue, purple, and violet accents.
• Pink also pairs well with green.
• Consider earth tones like browns and yellows.
• Blue-orange combinations work beautifully with green too.

For light green accents, check colours directly opposite on the colour wheel such as purples, lavenders, fuchsias, magentas, or grapes.

Green and yellow.

Yellow and green are a naturally calming combination, and there's a simple reason for that. The two colours sit side by side on the colour wheel, making them analogous. That means they share a comfortable, non-dramatic relationship, the kind you get with any two colours sitting less than 60 degrees apart. Blue and violet work the same way.

In terms of mixing, yellow is a primary colour and green is secondary. Combining the two produces yellow-green, with the balance shifting depending on how much of each you use. More yellow pulls it warmer, more green keeps it cooler. At a base level, blue and yellow are what make green in the first place.

From there, you can build outward. Adding brown to a yellow and green palette creates a three-colour analogous scheme that feels grounded and organic. Together, yellow and green are vibrant and luminous, and earth tones like brown add depth without disrupting that energy.

Neutral colours also pair well here. White, grey and black all work comfortably alongside green and yellow, with grey being the most flexible. Because grey is essentially a mix of all colours, its exact hue shifts depending on the concentration of colours within it. Greys with stronger green and yellow undertones tend to produce the most soothing results.

Green and red.

Red and green is a popular colour combination for good reason. It’s vibrant, uplifting, and carries an almost instant association with Christmas for many people. But mix the two together and the result is far less festive than you might expect.

Combining red and green paint typically produces a muddy brown. The reason comes down to colour theory. Green is made from blue and yellow, so mixing it with red effectively combines all three primary colours at once, and that combination produces brown almost every time.

The key distinction here is between using colours together and mixing them. Red and green sit directly opposite each other on the colour wheel, which makes them complementary colours. That relationship works beautifully in design, where contrast and visual tension are an asset. But when mixed, complementary colours cancel each other out, reducing intensity on both sides. Green becomes less green, red becomes less red. Unless you're specifically after certain brown tones, mixing the two is best avoided.

Green and blue.

Mix green and blue together and you get cyan, a cooler, lighter shade that sits naturally between the two on the colour wheel.

You'll recognise cyan from two of the most widely used colour models. In CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black), it plays a central role in print, particularly when reproducing colour on white paper. In RGB (Red, Green, Blue), cyan appears on digital screens, from LCD monitors to digital cameras and scanners. The core difference between the two models is simply where the colours show up: CMYK on physical materials, RGB on screen.

While cyan is the most consistent result of mixing green and blue, it isn't the only one. Adjust the ratio of each colour and you'll find a range of new shades emerging. The more you experiment with the quantities, the more variety you'll find.

How to make green: colour mixing techniques.

Green is a secondary colour, made by combining two primaries: blue and yellow. And despite coming from just two colours, the range of greens you can produce is surprisingly broad, from calm and peaceful shades through to fluorescent, brilliant and intensely bold greens.

How you make green depends on what you're going for. It's a dominant colour by nature, and one that many painters find genuinely challenging to mix well. Adjusting the hue and temperature is the key to controlling it. More yellow produces a lighter, warmer, yellower green. More blue gives you something darker, cooler and more deeply toned.

What colours make green?

Fundamentally, blue and yellow make green. Yet achieving specific green tones requires understanding how to adjust saturation using warming or neutralising colours like orange to purple.

It doesn't take much. Small amounts of these additional colours are usually enough to start shifting the saturation in the right direction. From there, you can work across the full green spectrum: warm greens, cool greens, light greens, dark greens, bright greens and muted grey-greens.

How do I make dark green?

The simplest way to get darker shades of green is to add black. Small amounts produce a subtle shift, while larger amounts take it significantly deeper. Either way, it's a process that rewards careful control, as black can overpower a mix quickly.

Creating new colours with green.

Blue and green.

The amount of blue you add to green makes a significant difference to the outcome. A small addition produces a green with a noticeable blue tint. A larger addition shifts things considerably, resulting in something that reads more as blue with a green undertone. Blue and yellow remain the underlying foundation, with the extra blue simply moving the mix toward teal and cyan.

Yellow and green.

Adding yellow to green produces yellow-green. This colour appears more yellow or green depending on the quantity of yellow. More yellow than green produces yellower hues with a green tint. Explore green hues and green colour tones for palette inspiration.

Red and green.

Red and green will always produce brown when mixed, a direct consequence of their complementary relationship on the colour wheel. The shade of brown shifts depending on how much of each colour you use. More red gives a warmer, redder brown, more green gives a cooler, greener one.

White and green.

Adding white to green produces lighter pastel green. A small addition lightens the green subtly, while larger amounts shift it considerably, to the point where the result can read as mostly white with just a hint of green.

Black and green.

Adding black to green produces a darker, deeper shade. The degree of change depends on how much you use. A little darkens it subtly, while more black takes the colour considerably deeper.

Enhance your green designs with Adobe.

Discover and produce amazing green shades easily with Adobe InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator. Use Adobe Colour to explore green colour combinations and complementary palettes. The Colour Guide panel can help you build harmonious schemes on your creative projects.