Tan is a light, muted orange: the hue of a pale brown, with much less color strength than a bright orange. That mix of light and muted is what makes it hard to hit with two paints.
In our paint model no pair of the stand-in paints lands very close, so the table below shows how far each mix still is.
CSS tan is a light, muted orange-brown. Tan has no single standard value outside CSS; other CSS tan-like colors are listed for comparison.
In paint
The nearest mix in our model is orange with a larger share of white. It still comes out lighter and more saturated than tan, because white lightens the mix but does not dull it enough. Yellow with violet is next: that pair is opposite on the painter's wheel, and mixing opposites is what mutes the color.
Closest two-paint mixes
- += 40% Orange + 60% White #F7C96D · ΔE 11.7 from tan
- += 55% Yellow + 45% Violet #C1993E · ΔE 12.7 from tan
- += 75% Yellow + 25% Magenta #FAA434 · ΔE 15.1 from tan
- += 90% Orange + 10% Cyan #C49025 · ΔE 15.3 from tan
- += 85% Orange + 15% Green #CD8E24 · ΔE 15.5 from tan
Equal parts
- += Orange + White #F7B852 · ΔE 12.5 from tan
- += Yellow + Violet #B68C42 · ΔE 13.7 from tan
- += Red + Green #5E3F3B · ΔE 46.7 from tan
ΔE is the CIEDE2000 color difference between the mix and tan. Zero means the same color; the smaller the number, the closer the mix.
In light
A screen shows tan with all three lamps on, red highest, green in the middle and blue lowest. Having every lamp on is what keeps the color muted; a saturated orange would have the blue lamp off.
The three lamps at these levels give #D1B58B. Levels are the amount of light each lamp gives out, which is not the same scale as the 0–255 numbers in a color code; the method page shows the conversion.
Wheel pairings
Tan is light, and the wheel rules keep lightness, so every partner in the table is about as light as tan. The contrast ratios are all low, so tan sits close to its partners in lightness.
| Rule | Painter's wheel | OKLCH wheel |
|---|---|---|
| Complementary +180° | #938CD2 1.54:1 | #9EBCE2 1.01:1 |
| Analogous -30° +30° | #D2A38C 1.14:1#D2C58C 1.14:1 | #DDAD98 1.01:1#BFBC8D 1.01:1 |
| Triadic +120° +240° | #8CD2A0 1.11:1#C88CD2 1.31:1 | #88C7C6 1.04:1#C9AED6 1.01:1 |
| Split-complementary +150° +210° | #8CBED2 1.02:1#AA8CD2 1.44:1 | #8DC3D8 1.03:1#B4B4E1 1.01:1 |
Tan mixed with each paint
Start from tan (#D2B48C) and add one of our ten stand-in paints. Shares are by amount, in our paint model.
| Add | 75% tan + 25% | 50% tan + 50% | 25% tan + 75% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | #D98C80 | #D94F59 | #D32A37 |
| Yellow | #D4B96B | #E1C63F | #F2D324 |
| Blue | #AAAC8E | #5D8993 | #27569A |
| Orange | #D4B071 | #DE9F40 | #EC9025 |
| Green | #A7B283 | #62A364 | #388C47 |
| Violet | #C9A68D | #A6778F | #72428A |
| Magenta | #D78C8E | #D44F8A | #C8257F |
| Cyan | #82B590 | #3FAA9D | #0E9DB8 |
| White | #D6BA93 | #E3CFB1 | #F0E9DA |
| Black | #C1AB89 | #8A8374 | #444341 |
Named tans in CSS
| CSS name | Swatch | Code | ΔE from this page's tan |
|---|---|---|---|
| tan | #D2B48C | 0.0 | |
| burlywood | #DEB887 | 3.1 | |
| wheat | #F5DEB3 | 10.3 |
Paint results come from a pigment model and our ten stand-in paints, not from real tubes, which vary by brand and pigment. Try any pair in the color mixer, or read how each swatch is worked out.