You can make brown paint by mixing other colors you already have, usually starting from the primaries (red, yellow, blue) or from complementary pairs like blue–orange or purple–yellow.

Basic brown with primary colors

Use any red, yellow, and blue you have (acrylic, gouache, etc.).

  1. Put small, equal blobs of red , yellow , and blue on your palette, leaving space between them.
  1. With a palette knife or brush, mix equal parts of each until the color turns from “muddy” to clearly brown (often a dark chocolate brown at first).
  1. Adjust:
    • Too greenish: add a touch more red.
 * Too purple / dull: add a touch more yellow.
  1. To lighten (tan, beige), gradually mix in white.
  1. To darken (deep wood, chocolate), add a tiny bit of black or extra blue.

Quick example recipes

  • Warm brown (wood, soil): more red and yellow than blue.
  • Cooler, deep brown (shadows): more blue and a touch of black.

Brown from complementary colors

You can also make brown by mixing opposites on the color wheel; this is handy if you don’t want to fuss with three primaries.

Common pairs:

  • Blue + orange → rich, versatile brown.
  • Red + green → natural, earthy brown.
  • Purple + yellow → slightly cooler brown.

Steps:

  1. Start with your secondary color (orange, green, or purple).
  2. Slowly add its opposite (blue, red, or yellow) until the mixture turns brown, not bright.
  1. Tweak warmth:
    • Warmer: add a little red or orange.
 * Cooler: add a little blue.
  1. Lighten with white, darken with a bit of black or the darker color in the pair.

Making different shades of brown

Once you have a base mix, you can turn that one brown into many usable shades.

  • To get redder browns (mahogany, brick): add more red or a touch of orange.
  • To get yellower browns (sand, leather, skin tones): add more yellow or white plus yellow.
  • To get grayish / muted browns (weathered wood): add a bit of black and maybe a touch of blue.

A simple way is to divide your brown into several little piles and stir in increasing amounts of white to each pile to create a strip of light-to-dark browns.

Why these mixes work

Brown is basically a dark, dulled version of red or orange, so any method that combines a warm color (red/orange/yellow) with enough cool color (blue/green/purple) will “knock back” the brightness into brown. When you mix three primaries or complementary pairs, you’re combining a wide span of the spectrum, and the result is a neutralized color in the brown range instead of a bright one.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.