<P> As an illustrative model, artists typically use red, yellow, and blue primaries (RYB color model) arranged at three equally spaced points around their color wheel . Printers and others who use modern subtractive color methods and terminology use magenta, yellow, and cyan as subtractive primaries . Intermediate and interior points of color wheels and circles represent color mixtures . In a paint or subtractive color wheel, the "center of gravity" is usually (but not always) black, representing all colors of light being absorbed; in a color circle, on the other hand, the center is white or gray, indicating a mixture of different wavelengths of light (all wavelengths, or two complementary colors, for example). </P> <P> The original color circle of Isaac Newton showed only the spectral hues and was provided to illustrate a rule for the color of mixtures of lights, that these could be approximately predicted from the center of gravity of the numbers of "rays" of each spectral color present (represented in his diagram by small circles). The divisions of Newton's circle are of unequal size, being based on the intervals of a Dorian musical scale . Most later color circles include the purples, however, between red and violet, and have equal - sized hue divisions . Color scientists and psychologists often use the additive primaries, red, green and blue; and often refer to their arrangement around a circle as a color circle as opposed to a color wheel . </P> <P> The typical artists' paint or pigment color wheel includes the blue, red, and yellow primary colors . The corresponding secondary colors are green, orange, and violet or purple . The tertiary colors are green - yellow, yellow--orange, orange - red, red--violet, violet - blue and blue--green . </P> <P> A color wheel based on RGB (red, green, blue) or RGV (red, green, violet) additive primaries has cyan, magenta, and yellow secondaries (cyan was previously known as cyan blue). Alternatively, the same arrangement of colors around a circle can be described as based on cyan, magenta, and yellow subtractive primaries, with red, green, and blue (or violet) being secondaries . </P>

On the color wheel orange violet and green are known as secondary colors