How do you make brown paint?

To make brown paint, mix red and green, or combine the three primary colours (red, yellow and blue) in roughly equal amounts. Start with small quantities and adjust as you go, since the exact shade depends on the proportions you use.

1. Mix red and green, or red, yellow and blue in similar amounts to create a basic brown.
2. Add a little yellow for a warmer, more golden brown.
3. Add a little blue for a cooler, greyer brown.
4. Add white to lighten the brown, or more of the darker colours to deepen it.

Keep your mixes small and test them on scrap paper or canvas before applying them to your main work. Acrylic paint dries fairly quickly, so mix only what you need for the area you are painting.

In a paint by numbers kit, you do not need to mix brown at all. Every brown in the picture is already supplied in its numbered pot, ready to use.