Orange and Black Make What Color When Mixed?

During color mixing chart festivities, I realized there was a glaring piece missing in my paint swirling experiments: the answer to, “Orange and black make what color when mixed together?” Let’s find out the answer.

First, some background. My name is Lillie, and I’m an artist and teacher who delights in investigations of queries like, “Blue and brown make what color?” Every illustration here is hand-made with love and fascination.

Let’s start by looking at what the two colors in question look like when swirled together, as shown by my drawing, above. (You may already have this palette ready for your Halloween drawing ideas!) Spooky, right? Now let’s get into the answer about what the resulting shade is.

Orange and Black Make What Color?

In fact, when you mix orange and black together, the result is brown! Now, which type of brown color you get depends on the “ingredient” pigments you have going in.

For example, we know red and black make dark red or maroon color, so if you mix a reddish orange (like the vermillion made from what red and orange make) with brown, you’ll get more of a maroon brown.

Meanwhile, we’ve discovered that brown and yellow make a light brown with a slight greenish flavor, so if our “ingredient” orange in the mix is more of a yellowish amber color (what yellow and orange make), the resulting brown will be lighter, with a tinge of green, as shown in the middle of my drawing, below.

Fun With Different Browns

Yes indeed: orange plus black is the easiest answer to “What two colors make brown?” because brown is actually a SHADE of orange. A shade is defined as a darker version of a color that’s created by adding black to it.

What I find so interesting about this particular color mix is that orange and black completely evoke Halloween spooky vibes (you can almost see the glowing jack-o’-lantern and flickering flames in the dark night, like our candle drawing, right?) — however when you mix them, you get a much softer color (brown) which is much more autumnal, earthy, and calming… like terracotta color.

Orange and Black Make What Color, in Sum

I hope this article on what orange and black make has been useful, as well as interesting. For further reading, check out my articles on “Purple and Brown Make What Color?”

Want more? Check out “Green and Black Make What Color?” and a question that’s related to one of the ingredients in today’s mix: “What is the opposite of orange?”