There are many myths surrounding the origin of amber.
Ovid wrote that when Phaethon, a son of Helios, the sun, convinced his father to allow him to drive the chariot of the sun through the heavens for a day, he erred too close to the earth, scorching it. To save the earth, Zeus struck Phaethon with a thunderbolt and he died, plunging out of the sky. His mother and sister turned into trees in their grief but still mourned him. Their tears, dried by the sun, are amber.
The Greeks called amber 'elektron', sun-made, perhaps because of this story.
Amber resin exists normally as honey orange, or as dark red as shown below: Honey orange amber is widely considered to be a typical color for amber, though red amber also exists in minute quantities.
Notice the difference between the two digital paintings above is that the sun is shining in lower one.