Talking about Color: Brown as a Neutral

Yesterday with the reveal of my latest quilt, I mentioned that I made it as part of a class on color.  Color is amazing, right?  As quilters, we love color.  We all tend to have a favorite color and a least favorite color.  I don't know about you, but I tend towards the blues.

 One of the things we talked about in the class were neutrals.  White, Black, Grey and Brown.  Yes, brown.  I have to admit, I've never really thought of brown as a neutral, always as a color.  But did you notice its not on the color wheel! 

White, black and grey are!  White is to make tints, black is to make tones, and grey is to make shades. 

 So with all these lovely arrays of colors, how does one get brown?  By mixing the colors together!

 If you take three colors in a triad, mix them equal strength, 1/3 each, you will get brown.  What happens if they aren't equal?  That is where chocolate comes in handy.  See, when fabric shopping, you always need some chocolate in your purse!

 Dark chocolate on the left, milk on the right, and when compared to the fabric, doesn't the fabric look orange or red?

 How about this one?  Maybe a little yellow in it?  Chocolate is a pure brown.

 This one looks pretty close to brown to me on the screen, but in real life, it was actually a bit green.

 Now this looks like a true brown. 

 I don't claim to be any kind of expert on color, but I found this to be really fascinating, and thought I'd share what I learned.