Raw sienna is redder than yellow ochre, which makes it a bit easier to use for protraiture.

But raw siennas are incredibly inconsistent accross brands. Far more than even burnt sienna. Some raw siennas are dark, some are light, some are fully transparent bordering on watercolor, some are fully opaque.

I find this to be a real problem, because if you start to rely on burnt sienna, you start to rely on a specific brand and specific raw sienna.

Yellow ochres on the other hand differ far less, they are all semi-opaque to opaque. Yellow ochre PY42 is incredibly consistent accross brands. Every brand I tried it in has the same light yellow, and very slightly dulled sand color. The only negative is that it is more yellow, it depends on what you need.

Maybe slightly out of the original two choice question, but I like PBr24 (
Chrome titanate), it is a lighter and more chromatic version of Yellow Ochre and very opaque.

I’ve tried it, it’s a nice opaque pigment. Although it’s not really an earth anymore, it is a very yellow pigment.

Consistent accross brands though.

I would be happy with raw sienna if brands actually agreed on what a raw sienna is supposed to be. But they don’t. They don’t agree on the opaqueness, they don’t agree on the hue, they don’t agree on the value, they don’t agree on the pigments used.

I guess if you keep using the same one single brand, maybe it’s less of an issue, but I am not really willing to lock myself into one brand. You develop a certain style of painting with a certain type of opacity you rely on, just changing brands can totally mess up how raw sienna works.

I’ve found raw sienna to be more consistent in watercolor, but in oil, raw sienna is an unpredictable mess from brand to brand.

Yellow Ochre. I have and used both, but Raw Sienna lives in the auxillary paintbox. Yellow Ochre saves my more expensive pigments, Cadmium Yellow Light and Quinacridone Violet. You can always darken Yellow Ochre to create a Raw Sienna. Vice Versa, I just notice that Raw Sienna is full, and Yellow Ochre is always near empty.

In keeping a limited palette, I would opt for Yellow Ochre, but this is of course based on what else I would usually have on my palette. In asking this, it might be important to list the rest that you plan for your palette.

It really is a nice versatile color though, and I rather like Yellow Ochre. Raw Sienna is wonderful for underpaintings or very minimally colored sketches where I just want to hint at color and use it mostly tonally with blacks and reds.

You could try Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide (PY 42). It’s very versatile: if you add some white, it behaves somewhat similarly to Yellow Ochre (PY 43); if you use it thickly, it’s a bit more like Raw Sienna (PBr 7); and if you tint it with medium, it works like a transparent dull yellow instead.

Yellow Ochre for sure. Most Siennas are easily reached with a mix from Yellow Ochre itself.

I find Y.O.’s value being its ability to mute and stabilize colors while maintaining warmth in mixes, moreso than most other colors.