Random Color Generator: Random Colors, Wheel Spinner, Paint Mode

Our free random color generator gives you one to ten random colors with a single click or a press of the space bar. Narrow the results to a hue family or a style such as pastel, earthy, or neon, lock the colors you like, or switch on paint mode to get only colors you can actually mix from acrylic or oil paints, with a mixing recipe. Every random color comes with its HEX, RGB, HSL, and CMYK codes and its closest color name.

How to Use the Random Color Generator

Getting a random color takes one click:

1. Choose how many colors you want. Pick anything from 1 to 10 colors in the “How many” menu. The tool starts with three.
2. Click “Generate colors”. On a computer, you can also press the space bar while the tool is on screen. Each click replaces all colors that are not locked.
3. Lock the colors you like. Click the padlock on a swatch to keep that color, then generate again. Only the unlocked colors change, so you can build a palette step by step.
4. Copy a code. Click any line (HEX, RGB, HSL, or CMYK) to copy that value, or click the big HEX code on the swatch.
5. Save or share. “Copy HEX codes” copies all codes in one line, “Copy CSS” copies them as CSS variables, “Download PNG” saves a swatch image, and “Copy share link” gives you a link that opens exactly these colors.

The Filters Explained

With no filters, the tool picks each color from all 16,777,216 colors a screen can show in 24-bit color (256 levels each of red, green, and blue). That is truly random, but it also gives you a lot of muddy and grayish colors. The filters let you steer the result without losing the surprise.

Hue Family

Limit the colors to red, orange, yellow, green, teal and cyan, blue, purple, pink and magenta, or brown. “Warm colors” keeps the hues from red to yellow, and “Cool colors” the hues from green to blue. Read more about warm colors and cool colors and how painters use them. “Grays (neutrals)” gives you only grays, from very dark to very light.

Style

• Light and dark: very light tints or deep, dark shades of any hue.
• Pastel: light, soft colors with a lot of white in them. Our guide to pastel colors shows how to use them.
• Bold and vivid: fully saturated colors at medium lightness.
• Earthy: muted ochres, browns, olives, and other earth tones.
• Neon: the brightest, fully saturated screen colors, like the neon colors of signs and highlighters.
• Muted: soft, grayed colors that work well as backgrounds.

Some combinations cannot exist. A pastel brown, for example, is no longer brown but beige or pink. In that case, the tool tells you so and shows typical colors of the hue family instead.

No Grays, Black, or White

This option is on when you start. It skips colors that are nearly gray, nearly black, or nearly white, so every result is a real color. Turn it off if you want the full random range.

Paint Mode: Random Colors You Can Mix

A random screen color is often impossible to mix with real paint. Bright cyan, electric green, and neon pink are far outside what most tubes of paint can produce. Paint mode solves this for painters: it only shows colors that can be mixed from a set of paints, and it tells you how.

First choose the paints you have:

• Artist palette (18 paints): a typical palette with cadmiums, ultramarine, phthalo blue and green, earth colors, titanium white, and ivory black.
• Basic (5 paints): red, yellow, and blue plus white and black, like a student set.
• Split primary (7 paints): a warm and a cool version of each primary plus white.
• Zorn palette (4 paints): yellow ochre, cadmium red light, ivory black, and titanium white, the limited palette named after the Swedish painter Anders Zorn.
• Earth tones (8 paints): ochre, siennas, umbers, Payne’s gray, white, and black.

Every color then comes with a recipe such as “2 parts Ultramarine Blue + 1 part Burnt Sienna + 3 parts Titanium White”. The parts are by volume, so a part can be a small dab or a full palette knife, as long as you use the same amount for each part. All filters still work. If a paint set cannot reach a color, the tool says so: the Zorn palette, for example, has no blue, and neon colors need fluorescent paints.

The recipes are calculated with the same paint model as our color mixer. They are a good starting point, not an exact formula, because paints differ from brand to brand. Mix the recipe, compare it with the swatch, and adjust with small amounts. The basics of color theory explain why blue and orange make brown and why white cools a color.

Spin the Wheel

“Spin the wheel” turns the generator into a game. The wheel is filled with 8, 12, or 16 random colors that follow your filters. Click “Spin”, tap the wheel, or press the space bar, and the color under the pointer is your pick, with all its codes, its name, and in paint mode its recipe. “New wheel colors” fills the wheel again.

The spinner works well in class: let each student spin a color for a painting, or spin one color for the main subject and pick the rest of the palette yourself.

The Painting Challenge

“Give me a challenge” picks three random colors, a subject, and a time limit between 10 and 60 minutes, for example: “Paint a koi pond with only these 3 colors. You can mix them and add white. Time limit: 20 minutes.” The challenge uses your filters, so in paint mode you get three colors you can actually mix, with their recipes.

Working with only three colors forces you to mix, which is one of the fastest ways to learn how colors behave. “Show these colors above” puts the three colors into the generator, so you can copy their codes or open them in another tool. For more ideas, try our art prompt generator.

Color Codes, Names, and History

Every color is shown in four formats:

• HEX: the six-digit code used in HTML, CSS, and most design apps, such as #3A7BD5.
• RGB: the red, green, and blue values from 0 to 255.
• HSL: hue in degrees on the color wheel, saturation, and lightness in percent.
• CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black in percent, calculated with the simple standard formula. Printers use color profiles, so for print work, check the values in your layout program.

The name is the closest match from a list of 2,330 color names, together with how close it is (“exact match”, “very close”, “close”, or “nearest”). Many colors have their own guide on our site, and the name links to it. Our color name finder shows more names for any color.

The history below the tool keeps your last 30 colors, so a color you skipped is not lost. It is stored only in your browser. Click a color to copy its HEX code, or clear the list with one click.

From Random Colors to a Palette

The links under “Take your colors further” open your colors directly in our other color tools:

• The color wheel shows your colors on the wheel, or finds complementary and other harmonies for a single color.
• The color palette generator turns two or more colors into a palette that you can refine and test.
• The color name finder shows more names for the first color.
• The color mixer calculates a paint recipe for the first color with the paints you choose.

How the Tool Works

The tool uses your browser’s built-in cryptographic random number generator where it is available, which gives evenly spread, unpredictable values. Without filters, it picks a red, a green, and a blue value from 0 to 255. With filters, it picks a random hue, saturation, and lightness inside the range of the hue family and style, and then converts that to RGB.

In paint mode, the tool builds a random recipe from one or two paints of your set, with or without white and black, and calculates the mixed color with a Kubelka-Munk model, the classic model of how pigments absorb and scatter light. It keeps only the mixtures that match your filters.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no sign-up and no limit.

Ideas for Using Random Colors

• Painters and illustrators break out of their usual palette, warm up with a timed three-color study, or plan a limited palette in paint mode.
• Art teachers hand out random colors with the spinning wheel, or use the challenge for a quick exercise in color mixing.
• Designers find an unexpected accent color, lock it, and build the rest of the palette around it, then copy the CSS variables.
• Crafters pick yarn, thread, or bead colors when they cannot decide.

More Free Art Tools

All our tools are free, run in your browser, and need no account. See them all on the free art tools page.

• Image color picker: find the exact colors in any photo or painting.
• Color name finder: get the name of any HEX, RGB, or photo color.
• Color wheel: find complementary, triadic, and analogous colors.
• Color mixer: mix paint or screen colors and find paint recipes.
• Color palette generator: create matching color schemes or a palette from an image.
• Tint and shade generator: make tints, shades, and tones of any color.
• Color blindness simulator: see images and palettes as color blind people do.
• Photo to sketch: turn a photo into a pencil sketch or line art.
• Photo to coloring page: turn any picture into a printable coloring page.
• Image to pixel art: convert an image into editable pixel art.
• Notan generator: plan light and dark shapes with a two- or three-value study.
• Art grid tool: put a drawing grid over any photo.
• Golden ratio overlay: check your composition with a golden spiral and rule of thirds.
• Perspective grid generator: print one-, two-, and three-point perspective grids.
• Paint by number generator: turn a photo into a printable paint by number template.
• Mandala maker: draw symmetrical mandalas and print them as coloring pages.
• Connect the dots maker: turn a picture into a printable dot to dot worksheet.
• Picture frame and mat size calculator: work out mat openings and frame sizes for your art.
• Art pricing calculator: find a fair price for your paintings and prints.
• Art quiz: guess famous paintings, artists, and styles.
• Art prompt generator: get random ideas for drawing and painting.
• Random character generator: create an original character with traits and a palette.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do I Generate a Random Color?

Click “Generate colors” in the tool above or press the space bar. You get one to ten random colors, each with its HEX, RGB, HSL, and CMYK codes and its closest color name.

How Many Colors Are There in a Random Color Generator?

Without filters, every one of the 16,777,216 colors of 24-bit RGB can come up, because each of the three channels has 256 levels. With the “No grays, black or white” option on, nearly gray, nearly black, and nearly white colors are skipped.

How Do I Get a Random HEX Color Code?

Generate a color and click the HEX line or the big code on the swatch to copy it. “Copy HEX codes” copies the codes of all colors at once, separated by commas.

Can I Keep One Color and Change the Others?

Yes. Click the padlock on the color you want to keep, and it stays when you generate again. Click it once more to unlock it.

What Is a Random Color Wheel?

A random color wheel is a spinner filled with colors: you spin it, and the color under the pointer is picked for you. Switch to “Spin the wheel” in the tool to use one, with 8, 12, or 16 colors that follow your filters.

Can I Mix These Random Colors With Real Paint?

Turn on paint mode. The tool then shows only colors that can be mixed from the paints you choose, with a recipe in parts. Paints differ between brands, so use the recipe as a starting point and adjust it by eye.

How Do I Share My Random Colors?

Click “Copy share link”. The link contains the color codes, so anyone who opens it sees the same colors. You can also download a PNG of the swatches.

Is the Random Color Generator Free?

Yes. It is completely free, needs no account, and runs entirely in your browser.