Warm stone grey
ΔE 3- 6 parts Yellow Ochre
- 5 parts Ivory Black
- 4 parts Titanium White
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Reads as a match in a painting.
Limited palette, mapped
The Earth palette: what it can mix and what it can’t
The mixable gamut of the Earth oil palette, computed tube by tube with Kubelka–Munk pigment physics. Colours shown at full strength are reachable by some mix of the tubes. The dimmed region is out of reach at any ratio.
See this gamut in Halftint
The same wheel, computed for the tubes you own. Free.
Same palette, three values. Coverage is the share of the hue/saturation disc within ΔE 3 of a physically mixable colour, on the same engine and threshold the app uses. Tube colours are chart-derived and labelled approximate; see the method page.
The tubes
- Titanium White
- Yellow Ochre
- Raw Sienna
- Burnt Sienna
- Raw Umber
- Burnt Umber
- Ivory Black
Yellow ochre, raw and burnt sienna, raw and burnt umber, ivory black, titanium white: the palette of the Old Masters’ underpaintings and of every tonalist since. Its computed gamut is the smallest on this site, and that is the point rather than a flaw. Every colour on the wheel above that survives at full strength is a colour that cannot clash with any other, because they all come from the same iron oxides.
Painting inside this territory for a month is the cheapest colour education there is. You learn value discipline (the earths span the whole value range), you learn that most of the world is greyer than you think, and you learn what black is made of. But the borders are real and close, and the wheels show how close.
What it cannot reach
Everything saturated is out. That is the deal. The numbers below are large, and note how often a single tube (a cadmium, a cobalt) closes the gap completely, which is why the classic advice is an earth palette plus one note of the subject’s colour.
| Target | Target vs closest mix | Gap | One tube that closes it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cadmium-strength red | ΔE 9.5 | Cadmium Red Light → ΔE 0 | |
| Clear sky blue | ΔE 13.3 | Cobalt Blue → ΔE 0.2 | |
| Saturated yellow | ΔE 7.8 | Cadmium Yellow Medium → ΔE 0 | |
| Leaf green | ΔE 11.6 | Permanent Green Light → ΔE 0.9 | |
| Violet | ΔE 12.9 | Dioxazine Purple → ΔE 2.4 |
Every number is computed with the same engine the app runs: the closest mix the Earth tubes can make, how far it falls short, and the single tube (from the generic single-pigment range) that best closes the gap.
Signature mixes, in knife-parts
Within its walls the earth palette barely needs recipes, since almost any mix lands somewhere usable. These are the ones worth writing down, computed to whole knife-parts.
Umber shadow
ΔE 1.8- 3 parts Ivory Black
- 2 parts Burnt Sienna
- 1 part Raw Sienna
- 1 part Yellow Ochre
- 1 part Titanium White
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Reads as a match in a painting.
Olive green
ΔE 2.6- 3 parts Ivory Black
- 2 parts Raw Sienna
- 2 parts Yellow Ochre
- 1 part Titanium White
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Reads as a match in a painting.
Brick red
ΔE 1.9- 5 parts Burnt Sienna
- 3 parts Yellow Ochre
- 2 parts Raw Sienna
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Reads as a match in a painting.
Cream / warm white
ΔE 0.1- 11 parts Titanium White
- 3 parts Burnt Umber
- 2 parts Raw Sienna
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Below a trained eye’s threshold.
Against the alternatives
The limited-palette debate is a gamut argument, so compare gamuts. Same engine, same mid value:
Keep exploring
Now draw the map for your own palette
Load the tubes you own, from the brand lists or as custom entries by pigment code, and Halftint computes your range, with knife-part recipes for everything inside it and the ΔE for everything that isn’t.
Open Halftint