Orange-brown favorites
October 30, 2025
På SvenskaIt may sound strange to describe colours as orange-brown.
The reason is to distinguish them from other brownish colours that lean toward yellow or red – those will be treated separately. There are so many muted yellows, oranges, and reds that I can’t cover them all in one post.
In the orange-brown category we find colours such as burnt sienna, umber, red ochre, Pozzuoli, mars red, and many others – colours that, without their natural unclearness, could be classified as orange.
Such colours are usually called earth colours, even though the modern versions have often never been outside a chemical factory. Every manufacturer creates their own interpretation of traditional earth pigments. That’s why my colour choices are often tied to a specific manufacturer of a particular paint; another maker might have a radically different colour under the same name.
Burnt Sienna
Burnt sienna is an absolute must in every watercolour painter’s palette. Like so many other earth colours, it varies greatly between manufacturers. This has nothing to do with the paint’s quality, but rather with each maker’s idea of what burnt sienna should look like.
I often use two different burnt siennas. One is produced by Winsor & Newton and is a synthetic colour made from pigment PR101. It has very pleasant qualities – it’s transparent, strong in colour, and clearly orange. It flows easily on wet paper, which can be an advantage in some paintings. It resembles Quinacridone Orange, a colour that is no longer produced. Burnt Sienna from Rowney is quite similar.
The other colour is Italian Burnt Sienna from Daniel Smith. It is less intense, more muted, and a little redder than the W&N version. It has a distinct granulation and therefore moves less in a wet wash – a beautiful, genuine earth colour that I use frequently.
Mummy Bauxite
Mummy Bauxite is such a beautiful colour. It has fine, very attractive granulation. The hue is a softly orange-brown, and although it isn’t very strong in tinting power, it works wonderfully in combination with similar colours. I wouldn’t use it alongside synthetic, highly intense pigments.
Only one manufacturer makes it: Daniel Smith, though Natural Pigments offers a similar paint.
Transparent Red Oxide
Transparent Red Oxide is a colour I use only for special effects. It flocculates heavily, creating unpredictable patterns – but only if applied correctly for that purpose. Without this quality, I wouldn’t be interested in it.
Only the version from Daniel Smith behaves this way; other manufacturers using the same or similar colour name lack its remarkable ability to form these patterns.
