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Pigment pair · PBr7 + PBr7

Mixing Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber

Nine steps from one to the other, worked out with a spectral model rather than by averaging screen colors. Half and half gives #4E2B1D. Click any step to open it in the mixer.

The full range, Burnt Sienna to Burnt Umber

Ratios are parts by volume, the way you would put them out on a palette.

This pair stays colored all the way across. You get a range of muted mixtures rather than a gray, which is what you want when a passage has to stay quiet without going lifeless.

The same range with white added

Two parts titanium white to one part of the mixture above. White lifts the value but also takes the chroma down, which is why a tint is never simply a lighter version of the same color.

The same range as a watercolor wash

Roughly one part paint to two parts water, over white paper. Remember that watercolor dries up to about thirty per cent lighter than it looks while wet.

What you are working with

PigmentIndexStrengthOpacityLightfastIn
Burnt Sienna PBr7 5/10 transparent, granulating excellent Oil, Watercolor
Burnt Umber PBr7 6/10 semi-transparent, granulating excellent Oil, Watercolor

Ultramarine’s most important partner: together they make every gray and every shadow you need.

A warm dark brown. Replaces black in many mixtures without going dead.

Now do it with your own paints

This page assumes two tubes. The mixer works from everything on your palette at once, and from a color you pick out of your own photo.

Open in the mixer Start from a photo

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