Schmincke spinel brown
Winsor and Newton calls it “magnesium brown”, but I am using the Schmincke version (which may or may not have magnesium in it).
Iron zinc spinel, or PY119, as it is known has the chemical formula (Zn,Fe)Fe2O4. If you know anything about art pigments, you may know that many browns are composed of iron oxide (which is cheap and abundant). This is a spinel, and thus it is more special. I use this along with titanium gold ochre (chromium-antimony-
titanium-yellow) when I want more of an orange-brown colour. They are both series II colours.
I have experimented quite a lot with different brown pigments. I really struggled to get my browns right. Of course I’ve heard of all the classic brown colours like raw sienna, yellow ochre, raw umber, burnt sienna, burnt umber. But I wanted to do something a bit different from everyone else, so I decided to avoid most of those colours.
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