Burnt Sienna
The text has been revised from an earlier version. Sienna is in its original form a yellow-brown earth color. If you heat up the natural sienna pigment, it becomes redder and In its original…
Category: Earth
Why are earth colors so different?
The image above, the header image for this text, shows various swatches of raw umber. Earth colors often differ radically between manufacturers. Colors with the same name can look completely different depending on who…
Terre Verte (Green Earth) PG23
This text was revised with new illustrations on January 5, 2026. Green earth is a natural mineral pigment traditionally obtained from the minerals celadonite and glauconite. It was already in use in ancient Rome,…
Potter’s Pink
In the late 18th century, an unknown potter invented a colorant that later became known as Potter’s Pink. The pigment is produced by calcining tin oxide together with various other oxides at high temperatures….
Orange-brown favorites
It 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…
Burnt and raw
Some earth colors occur in both burnt and raw forms. This applies mainly to siennas and umbers, which often have these designations added to their names. Occasionally, other earth colors may also have such…
Benzimidazolone Brown (Pbr25)
Benzimidazolone Brown is a very popular ingredient in many mixed paints, but as a standalone pigment in watercolor, it is not as commonly used. This is a bit unfortunate because it’s a very pleasant…
Magnesium Ferrite (PBr11)
Magnesium Ferrite is a relatively new pigment, created in 1962, and only a few manufacturers of watercolor paints use it. It is produced through the calcination of a mixture of iron oxide and magnesium…
