Color Spotlight: Raw Sienna (PBr7)

Raw Sienna is one of the traditional earth tones made from PBr7. It’s an earth yellow, more yellow than earth oranges like Burnt Sienna but typically more orange than Yellow Ochre.

Observations of DV Raw Sienna

Hue: Orange-toned earth yellow, mid value

Gradient: Smooth gradient

Granulation: Little to none

Transparency: Transparent

Lightfastness

Four months of light seem to have had no effect on this. Great!

Comparison to Other Colors

Da Vinci – Raw Sienna Deep (PY42)

This isn’t actually Raw Sienna – it’s a yellow ochre pigment (PY42 or synthetic yellow oxide). This is not particularly “deeper” than Raw Sienna, but I think they were trying to match the naming convention they’d established by calling their PR101 transparent red oxide “Burnt Sienna Deep.” Like other yellow ochres, this is more yellow than Raw Sienna. This color is also more granulating than Raw Sienna. It is comparable to MANS (discussed next), though I find it a bit weak and sticky (binder-heavy), and not as pleasant to paint out.

Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (PBr7)

Monte Amiata Natural Sienna is made from the same pigment as Raw Sienna, but it is yellower than the typical Raw Sienna, closer in hue to a typical Yellow Ochre. It’s also granulating.

Burnt Sienna Deep (PR101)

Raw Sienna is more yellowy than Burnt Sienna variants.

Comparison to Other Brands

Daniel Smith – Raw Sienna (PBr7)

Here’s a comparison from dot cards of Daniel Smith earth colors. Daniel Smith’s Raw Sienna is more orangey, less pigmented, and more granulating than DV’s.

My earth yellow of choice (at least for my first year or two of painting) has been DS Monte Amiata Natural Sienna. It’s made from PBr7, but is much less orangey than the Da Vinci or Daniel Smith Raw Siennas; it’s even more yellow than DS Yellow Ochre. I just love a very yellow earth yellow. It also has lovely granulation. Drawbacks are that it’s on the weak side, makes streaky instead of smooth gradients, and has a tendency to dry up and crumble out of the palette.

Winsor & Newton – Raw Sienna (PY42, PR101)

Many artists, including Ron Ranson and Paul George, favor the WN Raw Sienna for its very yellow hue. It mixes quite bold greens. The reason for that is the WN’s Raw Sienna is made primarily from PY42 (synthetic yellow oxide), which is commonly used to make Yellow Ochre. It’s also mixed with a PR101 in order to make it a bit warmer.

In hue, it is warmer/oranger than most colors marketed as Yellow Ochre (including the relatively warm Holbein), but not as orangey as WN’s other PY42, Gold Ochre, nor as orangey or muted as DV’s Raw Sienna.

I found WN’s Raw Sienna disappointing largely because it is quite weak, but I did like the hue.

Holbein – Raw Sienna (PY42, PBr7)

Like WN, this is one of the yellower Raw Sienna options. It’s made from a mix of synthetic yellow oxide (PY42) and the sienna/umber pigment (PBr7). The hue is similar to Holbein’s Yellow Ochre, but a bit browner, more granulating, and less opaque (I would still call it semi-opaque).

Compared to other paints I have tried, it most resembles Daniel Smith’s Monte Amiata Natural Sienna. But the granulation isn’t as pretty in my opinion. It’s more opaque, with more yellowy “body” beneath the granulation. It’s maybe a bit browner and less luminously yellow.

Both Holbein RS and DS MANS tend to dry hard and crackle out of the pan.

Color Mixes

These color mixes use Da Vinci’s Raw Sienna.

Burnt Sienna Deep (PR101)

With DV’s answer to Transparent Red Oxide, Burnt Sienna Deep, Raw Sienna can mix a range of earthy yet glowing oranges.

Indian Red

Backing your way into Burnt Sienna hues! The light values make peach colors that might be good for portraits of people with light skin tones.

Pyrrol Red (PR254)

Perylene Violet (PV29)

Color-separated muted warm browns. Not my favorite mix.

Dioxazine Violet

Makes brown, I guess. Not really a fan.

Smalt

Like MANS, Raw Sienna makes pretty neutral grays with WN Smalt (PV15).

Indanthrone Blue (PB60)

The orangey tones of Raw Sienna effectively mute Indanthrone Blue to a Payne’s Gray type color; with more RS, it moves into a tan/gray.

Ultramarine Blue (PB29)

Very nice mixes with Da Vinci’s Ultramarine Blue (PB29), a middle ultramarine; I like how a little bit of RS turns it into a dark muted blue, a moderate amount grays it, and a mostly-RS mix is a very nice Yellow Ochre hue. The second-to-last is pretty ugly. There is some color separation in all these mixes.

Cobalt Blue (PB28)

Similar to the UB mixes, but subtly more greenish all around.

Payne’s Gray

With actual Payne’s Gray the color mix is even more muted. The diluted, mostly RS mix has a dead-grass look to me. But it’s a bit muddy.

Indigo

RS mutes Indigo to gray. Both colors have a yellow cast, so there’s a muddy greenness to these mixes. The diluted mostly-RS mix has a very smooth look that to me resembles kraft paper.

Cerulean (PB35)

Greenish-gray muted colors, which remain color-separated.

Phthalo Turquoise (PB16)

Finally some mixes that go green. You have to start with a pretty greenish mixing color to begin with.

Phthalo Green Blue Shade (PG7)

A nice range of bright yet naturalistic greens similar to those with a yellow-orange (e.g. PY65).

Chromium Oxide Green (PG17)

A classic desert foliage mix, resulting in green-tans.

What Others Say

Raw Sienna is the perfect pick for dry grasses, distant winter leaves, parts of a tree branch, and the lightly tinted feathers of a Song Sparrow.

Scratchmade Journal, Comparing & Mixing Earth Tone Yellows

A beautiful neutral orange-yellow. In my explorations, the Daniel Smith version is the most lovely. Many others are more like a yellow ochre. Another option is Quinacridone Gold or Quinacridone Gold Deep. One of the special qualities of Raw Sienna is that it doesn’t really make greens when mixed with a blue so can be gorgeous in a sky as the warm yellow glaze above the horizon, with the blue above and no green!

Jane Blundell, Earth Colours

[Raw Sienna] is a warm, mustard yellow, which I think is essential for any artist who paints landscapes. I use it instead of Yellow Ocher, as Raw Sienna is transparent. It makes a pleasant, sage green when mixed with Cobalt Blue.

David Webb, Painting in Watercolor: The Indispensable Guide (2016), p. 35

I believe David Webb uses WN colors, so is referring to PY42.

The color of raw sienna resembles dried meadow grass, pale fresh cut woods such as maple or pine, and weathered plaster. I believe the Winsor & Newton formulation is closest to the historical color, which is slightly lighter valued, less saturated, cooler (more yellow), and much more transparent than yellow ochre; the differences between raw sienna and yellow ochre become less pronounced in tints, though raw sienna usually shifts farther toward a bright yellow.

Bruce MacEvoy, handprint.com

This is my ‘banker.’ It’s very versatile and I use it on every painting, beginning each sky with it. It’s an ‘earth’ colour – one of the oldest colours known. I much prefer it to yellow ochre, as it’s much more transparent.

Ron Ranson, On Skies (1996)

My Overall Review of Raw Sienna

There are two main categories of raw sienna; the orangey-tan ones (like Da Vinci or Daniel Smith) and the yellow-ochreish ones (like Winsor & Newton and Holbein). Each may be made from various pigments, but I categorize them by hue because it changes what they can do. They’re not interchangeable, but many artists/teachers don’t distinguish – simply calling them “Raw Sienna” – which can be confusing!

Orangey Raw Siennas

…are great for the desert! For example, I found DV Raw Sienna useful in the Mojave Desert, where its caramel-orange tones matched the landscape better than the yellower hue.

Many people cite Buff Titanium (PW6:1) as a base for sand, light-colored stone, and the buff tones in birds’ feathers, but I find I prefer diluted/light value Raw Sienna. Less opaque than Buff, it has more luminosity and gives you more options for deepening the color. When I find Raw Sienna too orange, a bit of Cerulean brings it into more of a gray-brown space.

Orangey raw siennas lend themselves well to tan and brown colors, including dry grasses (especially those lacking a yellow tone), because they are very easy to neutralize with blue.

Yellow Raw Siennas

Yellower raw siennas, such as WN and Holbein, are typically made from mixes with PY42. Essentially, they’re synthetic yellow oxides named Raw Sienna. I would also classify Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (PBr7) as a yellow-type Raw Sienna. It is made from PBr7, but it is quite yellow in hue.

Though Yellow-type Raw Siennas are basically sparkling Yellow Ochre, I tend to prefer their toasted golden hue to the greenish-brown of traditional Yellow Ochres. Raw Siennas also tend to be more transparent than Yellow Ochres, as the quotees above pointed out, though this varies from brand to brand.

Compared to orange-type, yellow-type Raw Siennas are much easier to work into a muted (or not-so-muted!) green. Orange-type RS basically never wants to go green, and yellow-type RS loves to mix green.

Yellow raw siennas, like other earth yellows, make wonderful sky colors. They can be used as an underlayer, to warm the horizon, or to add warm golden tones to clouds.

Choosing between the two raw siennas

I think of the oranger version of Raw Sienna as the “true” Raw Sienna (perhaps because I encountered it first, or because it seems more unique and distinct from other colors.) But I think that most people who love Raw Sienna are talking about yellower version.

As a more primary color, the yellow-type is more versatile. It’s especially handy for foliage mixes. Yellow-type RS can even be used in the sky, e.g. for sunsets and the golden haze behind stormclouds; orange-type RS used in the sky ends up looking like wildfire smoke. It’s also easy enough to get to the orange shade from the yellow, by adding a bit of earth orange.

That said, orange Raw Sienna is a very convenient specialist for certain types of landscapes where brown, buff, or tan rock stone colors are required (e.g. the desert).

Both types of Raw Sienna are wonderful mixers for browns and grays. Orange-type RS easily mixes gray with any blue. I find it more difficult to pinpoint the complement of yellow-type RS, but it’s great when used in a primary triad. It mixes lovely warm dimensional grays, without the acidic undertone that bold yellows can add.

Favorite version: Depends on the desired hue.

• Yellower: DS Monte Amiata Natural Sienna
• Oranger: Da Vinci Raw Sienna

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Da Vinci – Raw Sienna, 8ml tube: Da Vinci

Daniel Smith – Monte Amiata Natural Sienna, 5ml tube: Blick | Utrecht