Primary colors are the defining colors of the wheel. In the color wheels below, they appear in the center as well as equally spaced around the circle. On the traditional artist's color wheel red, blue, and yellow are primary colors. Secondary colors are the three colors that are equal distant from the primary colors. On the traditional artist's color wheel violet, green, and orange are secondary colors.
Tertiary colors are the colors between each primary and secondary color.
The artist's color wheel. This color wheel uses red, yellow, and blue as primary colors. This is used for mixing paints. The subtractive color wheel. This color wheel uses the printing inks cyan, magenta, and yellow as primary colors.