How to Make Brown With Acrylic Paint

There is a wide range of available brown colors to use in acrylic painting.

While it may be more convenient to buy a bottle of brown acrylic paint from a craft store, the normal brown does not provide the necessary depth or warmth that a custom-created brown paint supplies. In many cases, you may even start with a basic acrylic brown only to find yourself adding white for a paler tone, red or orange for an earthy shade or blue to carry a cold or muted color scheme throughout the painting project. For these types of projects and for the conservation of your budget, you may find it easier to create your own brown with the variety of acrylic paints already in your palette.

Things You'll Need

• Acrylic paints
• Mixing tray
• Palette knife or stir stick

Instructions

1. Place five parts red acrylic paint in your mixing tray.

2. Add two parts yellow acrylic paint to your mixing tray.

3. Mix the two colors together with a palette knife or stir stick. Thoroughly mix the colors until you see one uniform color in the tray with no streaks of red or yellow paint.

4. Add one part blue acrylic paint in very small increments until the paint in the mixing tray is the desired shade of brown. Again, mix the colors completely until there is a uniform shade before adding any more color.

Tips & Warnings

• Add more red acrylic paint in small increments to give the color warmth and richness or use blue, green or yellow to make the brown cooler. Add white or black acrylic paint to lighten or darken the tone.

• You can create brown by mixing complementary colors as well. For example, yellow and purple mix to make a taupe shade of brown, orange and blue make a rosy-peach shade of brown, and red and green mix to create a cinnamon shade of brown. In addition, you can enhance these shades of browns by adding more or less of any color, black or white.

• To preserve the color brown you have created for a future project, write the colors and amounts of each color used on the handle of a paint stick. Then dip the bottom of the paint stick in the brown paint and let it dry. Now you have a color reference and mixing directions for your next project.

References

• Painting Ideas and Techniques: What Colors Make Brown
• Moppet Murals: Mixing Acrylic Paint