Brown is not a hue of its own on the color wheel. Measured as numbers, it sits in the orange part of the wheel, only much darker and duller than a bright orange.
That is why so many different pairs can end in brown: any mix that lands on a dark, muted orange counts.
There is no single official brown. CSS has several browns; this page aims at saddlebrown, and lists the others so you can compare.
In paint
The three opposite pairs on the painter's wheel are red with green, orange with blue, and yellow with violet. In our paint model they give very different results: red with green lands on a dark brown, yellow with violet gives a light tan, and orange with blue comes out olive because this blue is strong enough to pull the mix toward green. Red, yellow and blue together also land on brown.
Which color gets the bigger share decides how warm or cool the brown is. The recipe table searches every pair of our ten paints and lists the ones that land closest.
Closest two-paint mixes
- += 40% Orange + 60% Violet #8E593E · ΔE 8.4 from brown
- += 35% Yellow + 65% Violet #91664A · ΔE 12.0 from brown
- += 85% Red + 15% Cyan #8B3334 · ΔE 16.3 from brown
- += 75% Red + 25% Green #8D3134 · ΔE 16.9 from brown
- += 85% Red + 15% Blue #B02831 · ΔE 17.8 from brown
Equal parts
- += Red + Green #5E3F3B · ΔE 17.6 from brown
- += Orange + Blue #5D7639 · ΔE 34.4 from brown
- += Yellow + Violet #B68C42 · ΔE 26.9 from brown
- ++= Red + Yellow + Blue #855C3C · ΔE 9.2 from brown
ΔE is the CIEDE2000 color difference between the mix and brown. Zero means the same color; the smaller the number, the closer the mix.
In light
A screen cannot mix brown from light the way paint does. It shows brown as dim red and green light with very little blue, which is the same recipe as orange at a lower brightness.
The three lamps at these levels give #8B4519. Levels are the amount of light each lamp gives out, which is not the same scale as the 0–255 numbers in a color code; the method page shows the conversion.
Wheel pairings
Across the painter's wheel from brown sits a deep blue, so blue is the complementary partner. The table also shows the other wheel rules, on two different wheels.
| Rule | Painter's wheel | OKLCH wheel |
|---|---|---|
| Complementary +180° | #133B8B 1.46:1 | #00658E 1.10:1 |
| Analogous -30° +30° | #8B2713 1.23:1#8B6313 1.32:1 | #8F3D3F 1.02:1#7B5200 1.03:1 |
| Triadic +120° +240° | #278B13 1.62:1#56138B 1.59:1 | #006E52 1.13:1#5C4E95 1.01:1 |
| Split-complementary +150° +210° | #138B63 1.66:1#2E138B 1.87:1 | #006B72 1.13:1#355999 1.03:1 |
Brown mixed with each paint
Start from brown (#8B4513) and add one of our ten stand-in paints. Shares are by amount, in our paint model.
| Add | 75% brown + 25% | 50% brown + 50% | 25% brown + 75% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | #913D16 | #A92E1F | #C6242B |
| Yellow | #A15819 | #CE9024 | #ECC423 |
| Blue | #6B4719 | #3C4727 | #1E474F |
| Orange | #984F16 | #C06D1D | #E4861F |
| Green | #6C4C19 | #4C6128 | #377C3A |
| Violet | #864316 | #713D24 | #5E3648 |
| Magenta | #903D18 | #A32F2B | #BA2456 |
| Cyan | #53511D | #3A6E39 | #16907D |
| White | #A65D22 | #D39B56 | #EDD5A7 |
| Black | #7D4415 | #503A1A | #27251C |
Named browns in CSS
| CSS name | Swatch | Code | ΔE from this page's brown |
|---|---|---|---|
| saddlebrown | #8B4513 | 0.0 | |
| brown | #A52A2A | 15.5 | |
| sienna | #A0522D | 6.8 |
Paint results come from a pigment model and our ten stand-in paints, not from real tubes, which vary by brand and pigment. Try any pair in the color mixer, or read how each swatch is worked out.