Speak to me about yellow. . . .

[Garth Herrick]

Yes Linda, I found seven tubes of "raw umber" handy to compare. They are each unique and special in their own way and will impart different results in mixtures on the palette. I drew these color out with a knife on a sheet of mylar, then made three levels of tints using Robert Doak Flake White + Glass (flake white with ground glass mixed in).

1. Good old Winsor and Newton: not a very interesting raw umber, it is the darkest and most oily out of the tube and by far, the weakest in tinting strength; so there is low pigment content in their formula.

2. Schmincke Mussini Umbra Cypr. Natur: much more interesting color, dramatically more infused with color than the above example; still not all that much in pigment concentration or tinting strength.

3. Schmincke Mussini Umbra Natur Hell: This is truly a rich deep yellow, being somewhere in between a raw umber and a raw sienna. It's the lightest and most colorful of these umbers; same in tint strength as the previous example.

4. Holbein Raw Umber: This is a classic raw umber much like the darker Mussini above. It clearly is a high quality product with significant tinting strength and higher pigment load.

5. Schmincke Norma Umbra Natur Grunlich: This is a fantastic light shade of raw umber with a decidedly greenish cast, and surprisingly, unlike the Mussini tubes, it has incredible tinting strength and pigment load.

6. Vasari Raw Umber: A super high quality product made by one man in his New Jersey shop and sold at one venue in Manhattan, NYC. This is a dark raw umber of incredible tinting strength and the highest in pigment concentration of these tubes. It is what you should be using if you like the color variety of the Winsor and Newton raw umber but hate the low quality.

7. Old Holland Raw Umber: This is a warm and colorful raw umber, similar in tinting strength to the Mussini tubes.

I hope this helps with the accompanying illustrating photo; thanks to Linda for nudging me into action.

Garth