What color do you get by mixing blue and yellow?

Mixing blue and yellow produces green in traditional subtractive color mixing. This is the familiar paint-and-pigment rule taught in elementary color theory: blue and yellow are treated as primary colors, while green is a secondary color made by combining them.

The result occurs because pigments absorb selected wavelengths of light. Yellow pigment absorbs much of the blue light, while blue pigment absorbs much of the red and yellow portions; the light that remains is perceived as green. The exact shade depends on the pigments, their proportions, and their transparency.

A common mix-up is confusing paint mixing with colored light. In additive RGB light, blue and green combine to make cyan, while red and green make yellow. Blue plus yellow light does not follow the same classroom rule because light and pigment use different color systems.