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February 19, 2009

Shades of Brown.

Thursday Thirteen

I think brown is such an ordinary color. According to my Merriam-Webster’s dictionary brown is any of a group of colors between red and yellow in hue, of medium to low lightness and of moderate to low saturation. Brown is the color of chocolate though, so it can’t be all bad.

Here are thirteen shades of brown:

1. Nutmeg
2. Chestnut
3. Bronze
4. Mushroom
5. Cocoa
6. Rust
7. Earth
8. Mahogany
9. Mocha
10. Coffee
11. Raisin
12. Copper
13. Umber

Do you like brown? What’s your favorite color? Your most hated color? And a question for writers: when you give your characters brown hair, do you call it brown or use an interesting description such as those above?

14 Comments

  1. Ms Menozzi

    Brown is actually one of my favorite colors. :)

    I try to be more descriptive, but I’m sure my work needs another pass to be more vivid – in Italy, my eyes are chestnut but my hair is brown. Weird, eh?

    Happy TT!
    Ciao!

  2. Adelle Laudan

    Kewl list. Off to look up Umber lol Happy T13!

  3. Stephanie Adkins

    My hair and eyes are both brown so I’m kinda stuck with it. :lol: I wish my eyes were blue though. Happy Thursday! *HUGS*

  4. julia

    Hi Shelley! ((hugs)) I’ve got all my nasty computer issues taken care of, so I couldn’t stay away one more second. Just flipped back through the week to see what I’d missed. Cabbage trees – these are the kinds of things I need to know. Seriously. For the Van Diemen’s Land story I’m working on right now. Thanks!

    I’m a brown hair/brown eyes person, myself, so brown is a good color on me. I’m personally attracted to black and red to wear. But for a non-girly-girl person, can you believe the colors that make my heart melt when I see them together in home decorating or in fabrics, china, vases, etc. are pink and gold?

  5. Jennifer McKenzie

    I do like brown. Usually, for hair, my heroes get the brown hair. Most of my heroines have more interesting colors. LOL.
    But eyes? That’s different. Tawny colored, hazel with green flecks, chocolate brown, I’m much more descriptive with eyes.
    Very cool TT and I think I added some words to my “color” palate.

  6. Amy Ruttan

    I usually say Chestnut curls.

    My living room is chocolate brown. Brown makes me feel cozy. I used to hate it, but now I really don’t hate any color. I can find redeeming qualities about most. :lol:

  7. Alice Audrey

    erriam-Webster’s dictionary has got it wrong. Between red and yellow you get orange. You only get brown if you add blue too, and then you have to be very careful about it or you end up with a weird mud color.

    Brown is my favorite color. It took me years to accept it, because it isn’t part of the rainbow.

  8. Nicola O.

    I’ve never been crazy about brown; I’ve always preferred cooler colors, but since I moved to the blue-gray Pacific Northwest, I can appreciate the coziness of the right shade of brown.

    One of my favorite obscure 80’s movies was called “Soup For One.” It was about a lonely guy who went to the police and had a sketch artist draw him a portrait of his ideal woman, based on his description.

    “Hair color?” asked the artist.

    “Oh,” the Guy said. “You know that color, just before twilight, when the sun is shining on a stand of beech trees in autumn–”

    The artist interrupts him: “Sir, would that be ‘brown’ ?”

    “uh, yeah. Brown.”

  9. Susan Helene Gottfried

    Funny. I think of raisin as more purple than brown.

    I sort of like the brown family. There’s a lot of colors, even among the ones that look like dirt.

  10. Heather

    I love different shades of brown. That and orange are the two colors I’m most drawn to these days. Not a bright day-glo orange, but warmer shades.

  11. Shelley Munro

    I’ve been busy today doing edits so have only just got online to check on comments. I see there are a lot of brown fans out there. I think of brown as a natural earthy color. I think my dislike of brown was formed as a child when my mother made me wear a brown dress. I hated this brown dress with a passion. I still remember the hated dress well and it was years ago!

    Nicola – LOL about the Soup for One dialogue. I liked the first description.

  12. R.J. Lebeau

    I like my brown eyes. They’re the same shade as Jack Daniels on the rocks. :-)

  13. Mel

    I agree with Jen on the hair and eye colour thing. Definitely like the darkness of it.