Browns and earth colors: what they are and how to mix them
What the earth colors are
| Tube | What it is | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow Ochre | Dull, slightly greyed yellow (PY43 / PY42) | Skin lights, sunlit earth, greying greens |
| Raw Sienna | A warmer, more transparent ochre | Glazing, warm halftones |
| Burnt Sienna | Dark greyed orange (PBr7) | Skin shadows, warm darks with Ultramarine, greying blues |
| Raw Umber | Dark greyed yellow-green-brown, cool | Fast-drying underpainting, cooling other earths, chromatic black with Ultramarine |
| Burnt Umber | Dark, warmer brown | Deep shadows, darkening reds and oranges |
| Light Red / Venetian / Indian Red | Red-brown iron oxides, opaque, strong | Brick, skin shadows, warm greys with blue |
All of them are iron oxides, cheap, lightfast and moderate tinters, which is why they are the backbone of most palettes and why recipes built on them transfer between brands better than recipes built on phthalos and quinacridones.
Mixing brown without a brown tube
- Orange + blue: Cadmium Orange + Ultramarine, or Cadmium Red + Cadmium Yellow + a dab of Ultramarine. Warm, chromatic browns.
- Red + green: Alizarin + Viridian in unequal parts gives deep, cool browns and near-blacks.
- Yellow + violet: Yellow Ochre + Dioxazine (dabs) gives soft, greyed browns.
- All three primaries: any red, yellow and blue together make a brown; the ratio sets its temperature.
The calculated recipes below show how three real sets reach the same browns:
BrownRecipe by paint setRustRecipe by paint setTerracottaRecipe by paint setMaroonRecipe by paint setSandRecipe by paint set
Warm browns and cool browns
A brown is warm if it leans towards orange and cool if it leans towards green or violet. Burnt Sienna is warm, Raw Umber is cool. To cool any brown, add Ultramarine or a touch of Viridian; to warm it, add Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Orange or Yellow Ochre. Hair, wood and soil almost always need both versions side by side — the lit side warmer, the shadow side cooler — and a single tube brown used flat is the commonest reason a brown passage looks dead.
Lightening browns
White turns brown pinkish-grey (think of milky coffee). For a light warm brown — sand, light wood, pale skin — add Yellow Ochre or a little yellow with the white. For a light cool brown — driftwood, stone — white alone or white with a touch of Raw Umber works.
SandRecipe by paint setCreamRecipe by paint setLight Skin ToneRecipe by paint setPeachRecipe by paint set
Earths as mixing tools
Because they are pre-greyed, earths are the gentlest way to lower chroma: Yellow Ochre softens a green without turning it grey; Burnt Sienna knocks the edge off a blue; Raw Umber cools and quietens almost anything. If a color looks too loud and the complement would be too drastic, reach for an earth first.
Questions
What colors make brown?
What is the difference between Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber?
How do I make a light brown?
