Earth Colors

Earth colours include yellow, brown, and red ochres, raw sienna (yellowish-brown), raw umber (dark yellowish-brown), and terre-verte (greyish-green). Roasting will change the colour, for instance raw sienna becomes reddish-brown as burnt sienna, and raw umber a dark brown as burnt umber. Before paints were chemically produced, earth colours were the most dominant in art. Prehistoric cave paintings are made up of earth colours, mainly ochre.