Colors NOT on the Color Wheel: Browns

From boring to brilliant, browns are just what you need to complete your color palette!

The color wheel is very pretty to look at. It’s full of 12 gorgeous, vibrant colors that flow from one to another effortlessly. However, there are MORE than just 12 colors, but these neutrals often get overlooked because they’re “boring,” especially to young people. But browns are just as important and vast as the ones on the wheel!

Above is a graphic of all the different groups of brown made by Copic! The Earth-Tone color family has the most colors with 53 and is tied with Blue for the highest amount of color groups at 9. As you can see, there are warmer brown groups, such as E1_, and there are cooler brown groups, such as E8_. *E5_ is the closest group to being a true neutral brown, however, it’s undertones still lean towards warm.

Brown is also one of the most common colors you’ll see in nature. It’s found in everything from human skin and hair to a wide variety of animals, trees, and plants. Houses are often painted brown (on the inside and out), the coffee we drink and the chocolate we eat is brown, a lot of our clothes and shoes are made in the color brown, and so on.

 What makes Earth-Tones so essential to everyone is their easability to go from neutral to warm to cool in their undertones. Take makeup foundation, for example. In today’s leading brands, it’s common to have 50 different shades of brown to meet the needs of most skin colors. Fifty is A LOT, but it still probably isn’t close to covering all the different undertones and values of our skin! 

So, the next time you’re thinking about expanding your Copic collection, don’t forget about the Earth-Tones! Their use encompasses a significant amount of what we see in our everyday lives, dressed up in brown luxury leathers, interiors, and clothing, and dressed down to brown soil, clay, and granola. Brown is a color for everyone! And, at the very least, be like Jake from State Farm and buy a pair of brown khaki’s…they truly do go with everything!