Description
- Burnt Sienna is a warm, mid-brown color formed by burning the yellow-brown limonite clay called Raw Sienna.
- It ranges from semi-opaque to semi-transparent due to the combination of its opaque, red-brown mass tone and its transparent, orangey undertone.
- It is an excellent mixing complement for blues and greens and creates salmon or peach colored tints when mixed with white.
- It can be useful for subduing bright colors and does not get chalky in dark mixtures.
- Burnt Sienna has been used as a pigment since prehistoric times, but its current name came about during the Renaissance.
- It comes from the city of Siena, in Italy, and is short for terra di Siena, meaning earth of Siena.
- Sienna was famous for the mining and production of earth pigments from the Renaissance until World War II.
- Due to the depletion of clay deposits in Tuscany, Italian siennas now come from other areas, including Sicily and Sardinia.