Limited Palette
 

Loving colors, as I do, is one thing, but choosing what you need is another.

The color industry is of course pushing the needs of various
tubes of colors you can not live without.

But basically there is only three colors you can not live without, yellow, red and blue. Fore painting you will need White and maybe black too.

My point is that to many color tubes will tempt the painter to choose the specific color as they are right from the tube, with a very limited tonal range as the result.

To compare with another instrument, there is the piano. I am not sure how many keys there are, because I don

I think you could pretty much paint any portrait from those colors. Other pigments might be needed for some types of clothing and backgrounds, but a whole painting with neutral-colored clothing and background could easily be created with your limited palette.

The colors you mention are very similar to an old master's palette. It is said that Rubens used only white plus Venetian Red, Yellow Ochre and Ivory black.

For painters just starting out with color a limited palette such as the one you describe is often highly recommended -- and can also be a good discipline for many more advanced painters too.

Hi Michele,

I am sure that you mean well, but about Rubens using only the colors you named, I am afraid it is not enough. I have reproductions of his pictures that shows that he used both Vermilion and a strong blue in addition to those you mentioned.

It is not easy to paint. Not even if the colors are limited.

I am not seeking the easy way out, nor am I trying to complicate things. But I know that many artist ( new and experienced ) is misled by the fancy names of colors, covering that many "different" colors are in fact made from the same pigments.

A concrete example : Raw Sienna is the same as Golden Ocher.
Mars Brown, Oxide Red, Indian Red, Venetian Red is also basically the same pigment, made from the same source, which is earth (clay) polluted more or less by iron oxide and other metals.
To achieve an all-round overview of available colors it is essential to understand there origiens.

Allan

Alizarin Crimson, while necessary for a deep red, (rose) is, to my understanding, somewhat fugitive. It may be replaced, with no loss at all, by the more stable, Rose Madder. Why is Gold Ochre Transparent, Venetian & Indian Reds necessary too?
I also like Dioxazine Violet, Cobalt Blue, Manganese Blue, Cerulean, Sap Green, Cadmium Greens- Deep&Pale, Cad. Y.'s-D.&P.. Cad. Or. and Quinacridone Rose Deep too.
Granted, I have a huge palette. Just my taste.
Later,
a.

I suppose very few colors are truly "necessary" and what those few colors are would be open to considerable debate. However there is the perennial question of "What is better, a limited palette or a more expanded one?"

Many artists feel that a limited palette is easier to learn on. You can get to know all the characteristics of those few colors more quickly, and you're forced to concentrate more on value, which after all, is where the power of just about every painting comes from.

But here's a reason in favor of a more expanded palette, given to me by my former teacher Tony Ryder (whose palette had 42 colors on it!) He made the analogy of preparing food and needing some mustard for whatever you're making. You can go and get all the separate ingredients in mustard and mix them all together in the right proportions to get what you want.... or you can just go out and buy a bottle of mustard. There's a clear time savings involved.

All in all, it comes down to personal choice. I have about 14 colors on my palette, with a few additions now and then for certain specific subjects.

My Palette,
YO pale W&N,
Cad Red light OH,
Persian OH,
Red Umber OH,
Burnt Umber OH,
Raw Umber W&N,
Green Umber OH, Ivory Black
Titanium White Rembrandt 118

I also use

Cad Yellow light OH
Cad Yellow medium OH
Naples Yellow extra OH
Sapgreen OH
Alizarine OH

If you want to see beautiful work done from a limited palette, look at the paintings of Anders Zorn. His basic flesh palette was cad red light, yellow ocher, black and white. I'm sure he used other colors, too, but the range of color/values he was able to express with these four tubes of paint is amazing . . . to me, at least.

I'm a bit late to this discussion, sorry.

I'm in exactly this position, just learning and using a very limited pallete because of that:

Flake or Titanium white
Alizarin Crimson
Cadmium yellow light
Ultramarine
Windsor green

I used to use black too, but substituted it for windsor green since when mixed with alizarin it makes a beautiful, shimmering near-black which has much more life to it. This idea I got from a book by Kevin MacPherson. When I was at art college many years ago they banned us from using black. I used to use a mixture of ultramarine and burnt umber back then as a substitute for black.

I find I can mix pretty much everything I want just with those five colours. You can get very close to a tube ochre, or sienna. It's true that it takes longer when you have to mix every colour, but I think that can be a good thing. It makes you look at the colour you're trying to match much more closely.

I made a handy little device, a piece of card painted flat grey with a few holes holes punched in it to look through and isolate colours with. It never ceases to amaze me how different colours really are compared to what I think they are at first glance.

I do think that the extra effort and constant comparing required to mix every colour trains my eye to see colour better. I also think that a limited pallete can give more unity to the painting. I sometimes see paintings where all the colours harmonise well except for one or two which look like they came straight from the tube and were used largely because the painter likes the colour, which is fine I guess, but they can stand out somewhat and disturb the harmony when used this way.

This sounds like a perfect palette for plein air painting too. (Also, for those not familiar with Winsor Newton colors, Winsor green is also called Pthalo green.)

Limited palettes, love 'em!
 

Thanks to Marvin Mattleson, I have managed to whittle down my palette to:

All Micheal Harding except for the Alizarin which is Blockx in the order as they are on my palette,

Flake white #2
Naples yellow light genuine
Yellow ochre
Vermilion genuine
Alizarin
Venetian red
Burnt umber
Raw umber
Black
Viridian
Ultramarine

And occasionally cobalt violet.

I only mix a range of greys. It is really simple and I am amazed at the range of colors that I can get from those particular paints.

I used to use the Daniel Greene palette, but I found the skin-tones were much to orange and rather dull. It also took a lot of time.

This is quick and easy.

Kinstler's new CD, Zorn revisited
 

I see that back in Feb. I dashed off a note (as though I really knew it all) about how Zorn used an extremely limited palette (red, yellow, black and white).

Blush, blush, blush.

I just read an article in the American Artist Magazine telling how Zorn did use a somewhat limited palette, but not that limited. I was happy to hear this because some of his paintings had some colors that looked suspiciously like they may have contained blue.

And, recently, I just received a CD put out by Everett Raymone Kinstler. It's new, and it knocked my socks off. His palette is also very simple, and, to my eye, very effective.

It consists of alilzarin, cad red light, raw sienna, cad yellow light, cereulean and ultramarine blue, burnt umber, burnt sienna, sap green, and white.

He does all those outstanding painting with this simple set of colors.

I think it's worth the money. Made me change a few of my ways.

You also said you were sure he used some more colours though, and it sounds like you were right :)

Personally I'm glad you posted that because it made me a have a much closer look at Anders Zorn's paintings. Pretty inspiring, I'd love to see one of those in the flesh.

Sharon, I noticed you use naples yellow and no cadmium yellow, is there a particular property to naples yellow that you like? I found this description on a web site today:
I can't remember ever having tried it, but I thought I might do one painting with it instead of my usual cadmium yellow light just to see.

I also like the Naples Yellow and find that it works well as the light, bright, sunny yellow that is easy to incorporate in complexion colors.

But I recently found a wonderfully transparent gold ochre that almost resembles the Naples Yellow when mixed with white.

There is a small dot of the Naples Yellow from W&N in the middle of the picture of my palette. The other mixtures are made from Cadmium Yellow Light and Transparent Yellow Ochre and Titanium White.
The upper mixture is only Transparent Yellow Ochre and Titanium White and is pretty close to Naples. A tad of red would do the trick or maybe if it was mixed with Zinc White that is more yellow ?

The point of all this is that I want my colors to be inter mixable and not the static "notes" that i press when I need a certain "skin" color or "grass" color.
By mixing all the time I will get different notes all the time and hopefully a greater variation.

With the Cadmium Yellow Light I can mix it in the red line and also in the blue to get vivid greens.

Allan

Thanks Allan, that's very interesting. The Naples yellow definitely looks a bit more peachy next to the transparent yellow ochre and white.

You mention it's transparency. Forgive my ignorance, but what does this quality give you? Better mixing with other colours or a glaze like effect over other colours perhaps?

I must admit I'm too busy trying to get my colours anywhere near right at the moment to have time to think about qualities like the transparency of the paint! I find this very interesting though, I'm very conscious of how little I know about the materials I work with.

Paul,

It is not just ANY Naples yellow, but a GENUINE Naples Yellow light, made by your fellow Brit, Micheal Harding.

It is a clear lovely lemony thing, quite unlike the ersatz Naples Yellow made by other companies which usually are a mix of some kind of white paint and cadmium yellow.

It is really quite perfect and does not overheat the skin-tones.

I believe Sargent used it but it was called Tin Yellow. Orpen used it under that moniker as well.

Fantastic Sharon, I'd never heard of Michael Harding. As luck would have it, an art shop not far from me sells his paints, I feel a shopping trip coming on. I bet they're not cheap though. Actually, I've just thought of another advantage of only using a few colours...

Sharon,
You are right. I found his homepage and saw the color chart, it is definitely different from this W&N Naples. I also saw that it can be bought from two shops in Copenhagen / K

Paul,

They are expensive, relatively, but they are so incredibly densely pigmented a little goes a long way. His flake white #2 is my favorite.

One of the reasons I like his paint is it doesn't suede as badly as paint made with alkali refined linseed oil. This is especially important in portraiture.

Also, I don't have to pay your 171/2 % Vat tax, but then again you have health care, a rarity for US artists.

If you have a limited palette such as this you always know what you are low on. There are no mysterious tubes of half used and drying paint all over the place. It is really quite economical, although my paint purveyor swears I eat paint. My work is quite enormous though.

Monet's Palette
 

From "Techniques of The Worlds Great Masters", Chartwell Books Inc.

"Monet's palette was simple and fairly limited. The blues are ultramarine or cobalt and the cadmium yellows were consistently employed by Monet. Viridian and Emerald Green were on his palette but played an unimportant role here. Vermilion and Alizarin Crimson were his reds and Cobalt Violet was added after the 1880's. It is important to note that Monet never used colors straight from the tube but were all mixed with lead white in varying degrees to create a pastel-like reflecting luminosity".

A further note, he started with a pale grey ground applied to a fine-weave canvas allowing the ground to show through.

When venetian red, yellow ochre, bone black and flake white are invoked as the limited palette of Rubens or Velasquez, the use of vermilion and the occasional blue (Diego used smalt, Peter probably could afford lapis) is so sparing as to be negligible.

Often, folks make the effort to limit their color use with the masters' example in mind, but confound the proper use of some colors. The "old masters" followed a fairly narrow methodology for "constructing" a painting, underpainting/overpainting then glazing, using more opaque and naturally lean colors in underlayers and finishing with oil absorptive, transparent pigments in the topmost "fat" layers. The modern painter using even a limited "layered approach" should familiarize him/herself with the nature of materials, which colors are more oil absorptive, which are transparent, etc.

Feeling hamstrung by a paucity of available color is the frustration that makes children yearn for the 48 colors box of crayolas! None of us ever quite outgrow that "racoon" reaction to the availability of pretty colors to use. (I know I'm a sucker for a "new" color!)

The greatest benefit to be derived by working from a limited palette is the vast "head-room" that becomes available when you need to "punch" vivid color. Similar to mastering the compression of values, it is possible to imply local color variation with very limited means. A painter might work for months using only raw siena, ultramarine and white and never quite plumb all the possibilities . . .

I see what you mean, I don't know how good my monitor is (I suspect not very,) but the golden ochre looks like the only one to have kept it's warmth after mixing with white.

Now that's interesting - I take it you mean that effect of different brush stroke directions catching the light and looking like a mowed lawn? That's been bothering me lately on a couple of dark backrounds. I'm hoping to get into London next Saturday and get some - I'll let you know how I get on.

That's very interesting about Monet's palette. Especially the vermilion, to me anyway. Yesterday I was trying to match the colour of a tomato with alizarin and cadmium yellow light, and it was a bit of a battle. I almost broke down and got a brighter red out but I stuck with it and it didn't come out too bad. I suspect any colour shortcomings are much more down to me than to my paint right now :)

Richard, I didn't quite get the headroom part, but this:
makes a lot of sense to me. Even with just my five colours I get a bit bewildered by the range available, and I'm at least partly aware of how little of it I've mapped. Every time I use them I find something else I can do with them, but what surprises me the most is how close I can get to colours in nature with just those five. Like I said earlier I tend to think that if I'm having trouble getting a colour right, it's because I just haven't the necessary experience yet to get it.

One of the reasons I like a limited palette is I can play the colors more or less like a piano. I know where they all are and what they do vis-a-vis each other.

I sometimes add others like a cobalt violet etc.

Right now a pink garment I am painting needs a little clear pink, so I am adding touches of cadmium red light.

The Vermilion works beautifully in skin-tones and is much easier to control than the Cadmium red.

I saw the Monet show in Boston several years ago. The color was shimmering. I have seen many artists who use every paint color available fail to even come close to what he achieved with his limited palette.

My misapplication of the term, Paul. What I meant is that in life, we're presented with a value range from the brilliance of the sun itself to near absence of light in deep shadow. In comparison, art materials provide only a severely truncated range between black and white, so successful illusions rely upon further compressing this limited range so the viewer may "believe" our white is a sunburst, or our black a stygian shadow. The better the control of a compressed range of values, the more "headroom" remains available for ultimate contrasts by reserving the limits of our range for accents.

Chroma (or intensity) presents similar limitations and problems. If all the elements of a painting are high-chroma, there's no "headroom" for stating the incredible intensity of , say, a flower, or using the power of intense color to make a statement or emphasize, or lead the eye.

Indeed, this is exactly what I'm trying to teach myself, just my piano has a few less keys. Five is quite enough to get confusing for me :)

Richard, thanks, now I understand exactly what you mean. It's funny, I've been trying to get my head around this very thing lately, and you've crystalised it for me perfectly.

I recently had some trouble with a painting, trying to match the intensity of the highlights on a piece of white cloth. I've been getting a bit obsessive with matching the colours of nature as closely as I can, so I'm always questioning whether or not some colours are impossible to match, although I may be thinking more of value than chroma. I've
wondered on occaision whether it would make sense to put in the lightest highlight first, and work down from there, using values relative to that highlight rather than the values in 'reality'.

It wasn't until after I finished this painting the other day that it struck me that I was facing the window, so my canvas was in shadow. Big head-slapping moment. Of course my white paint wasn't as light as the highlight on the cloth,
it was in shadow! But it got me thinking about the differences between the small world I'm trying to make in my painting, and the reality out there, and whether sometimes you have to depart from reality in order to make something appear more - real.

I suspect I'm not exlaining this nearly as clearly as you did, but I hope you get the idea. I should probably mention that I'm just learning right now, which is why I'm spending some time trying to match colours in nature, nature being the best teacher.

Now don't start on that, I've got enough to think about as it is!

Paul, I'm gratified to be of some small help. Here's another suggestion:
Make a couple of value scales in neutral grey, swatches about an inch by three inches wide, "pure white" at the top, "dead black" at the bottom, and eight stops between.

When you approach your subject, assess a "local" value for light and shadow. For example, if you number the scale with black being "1", a white cloth on a table may be value 9, in shadow # 6, say,depending on the lighting. The shift of three values will hold true across the board.

That means if an apple on the cloth may have a "local" value of 5 in light, its shadow will shift on the scale three places to 2, same as the cloth.

It's my contention that color simply falls into place if grey-scale values are correct.

This is where I part company somewhat.

Black and white is intellectual, color is emotional.

You CAN learn color scales and values to SOME extent, but I have never seen a good colorist who has simply LEARNED color. It is after the bacics are learned, ie: complementaries etc. that real color understanding comes in, it becomes a process of the unconscious.

It is the difference between a Van Cliburn, and a church pianist, both of them knows where the keys are, have learned the scales, etc., but only one soars, and that is not just from the intellect.

Hm. I don't think we're really of divergent opinions , Sharon, and I'd far prefer to remain in your company !

I agree entirely color is emotional (and personal). I disagree (somewhat) that black and white is intellectual; value contrasts are the essence of lighting, which also provide a good measure of emotion. Think of the "mystery" inherent in a face or figure lit from below, as from a bonfire or footlights . . . or the peacefulness of even, gentle light from above, as in a bucolic landscape . . . or the melancholia of waning light low and from one side, as in an autumn sunset.

To continue the piano metaphor, above, I'm speaking more to the problem of figuring out which part of the piano makes the sounds come out. In the initial phases of learning to paint, we're first concerned with forming a credible illusion. When values are wrong, the illusion fails, independent of any color. If values are correct, a believable illusion results. Only then can color and its nuances be addressed.

So are we saying a limited palette is the number of colors or the kind of colors on the palette?

Sharon I liked Marvin's palette too, but I have always been a bit wild with color that's why I was drawn to Liberace (he works good with all of these piano analogies). I don't understand how you can do Marvin's palette without keeping total focus on your values, isn't that what his is all about? Perhaps you just like the "earth" colors.

Paul regarding;
I believe that near the end, this was the technique that Rembrandt practiced. He would use these brush strokes to reflect light instead of adding the whites. This is in addition to keeping the lights thicker. I love to see paintings that utilize this, I wonder if Alex did on her beautiful self portrait.

Well if you are having a rainy day and want to bring a bit of mania into your work, her is my palette with the foundation from Liberace's. My colors are either Old Holland or Studio Products.


Burnt Sienna
Cad Yellow Light * ** ***
Cad Orange
Intense Vermilion
Cad Red Light
Pyrralo Ruby * ***
Alizarin Crimson **
Cobalt Violet Light
Cobalt Violet Med
Manganese Violet
Cobalt Blue Turquoise Light ***
Cobalt Blue Turquoise
Cerulean Blue
Ultramarine Blue
Phthalo Green **
Viridian Green Light
Flake White * **

Very basics -
* mid (

Beth, what I consider a limited palette is an outgrowth of the earth palettes of the "old masters", whose color choices were limited by availability in the first case, and economics next .

Some painters like to mimic printing process CYMK (cyan, or blue, yellow, magenta, black) limiting their palettes to basic primaries, but I feel a high chroma palette however simplified is not a "limited palette" in the sense we're speaking.

The high chroma palette you list is no doubt extended by preferences for subtle nuances of color variations which most painters will need lengthy experience painting to appreciate.

For example, depending on the colorman, many on the list become redundant - there's little "working" difference between vermilion and cad red lt., or pyrol ruby and alizarin, and mixtures with cad yellow lt. will yield a high-chroma orange. Similarly, the violets overlap as do the turquoises, and pthalo and viridian. I note there are NO earth colors other than bt. siena, and no black . . .

Mind you, I'm not saying one may not come to require these colors, and a single pigment will always be more brilliant than a mixture. This palette was no doubt developed by a colorist who has made specific choices based on personal taste and long experience. I'd feel it's a safe bet that not just anyone's pyrol ruby or turquoise shade would suit, either !

Richard,

That is a really good point, as a matter of fact I paint with a pre-mixed grey scale. I use them to mix with my colors. I do not use, as a rule complementaries to cut the value of my chroma.I started to do this after I realized Sargent once commented to an impressionist, that he could not imagine how to make form without black.

As to my previous statement about black and white being more intellectual than color, I really should have said FORM which is more considered than color, which is more from the unconscious.

As to Liberace's palette, a won't comment, but I am personally more drawn to Monet's work, who was able to do transcendent work with such an economy of means. I have had the opportunity to see a good deal of his work in person, and to my opinion there are few if any painters that can touch him today.

Beth, I do not particularly prefer earth colors per se and I don't see my work as particulatly earth-toned.

I think we al have to find out what works for each of us, however, i think starting out with a limited palette helps one step into the world of color.

Sorry to show up late to this discussion. Paul, was that from the Vasari website? I say this because I have both the Dutch Yellow and the true Naples from that company and I like them both.

Sharon, I agree with you about Vermillion (I have Michael Harding's on my palette) - much easier to control than Cad Red Light.

I think a lot of contemporary figurative colorists have pumped up the chroma on their palettes because they frequently use warm artificial lights in studio setups (I'm thinking of Robert Liberace and Jeff Watts at the moment).

Linda you could be right about the lighting, but I think it's also a kind of "who you hang with" thing. I am not sure what kind of light Shanks uses but Ii do know Rob is very tight with him. Marvin uses artificial and his palette all earth. Funny huh?

Sharon most people are ... "yikes, what color does that make?" with Liberace's palette. The first time I learned it we had a very olive skin colored model with both natural and artifical light hitting him. I keep saying there was no way, but it becomes a mindset of seeing and pulling the color to make it better, not just what's there - granted you have to like the colors! ;)

When I think of your dancers I think the color is so vibrant and full of life that it shows - if you have 10 colors or 20, it's how all really about understanding the relationship of each to another to get the most bang for the palette. You are so good at this!

Well, I think it is all a matter of observing the live model. At least for me, if I just look (a lot) it is easier to see color.

Richard, that's an interesting way to approach it. I will give it a try. My only problem with it is that I don't believe I've ever seen a neutral grey in nature. But I can certainly see the point in terms of working from value first and THEN looking at colour. I currently work with colour and value at the same time, in a way I feel that they're indivisible. But of course I won't know for sure about that until I've tried the 'relative value' approach too. I think I'll try it by trying to paint the same subject three times in different keys, high, medium and low.

I must admit it goes against the grain a bit for me, but I do believe in being open minded about these things and certainly wouldn't dismiss it without trying it first.

Yes Linda, it was the Vasari site. I think I just ran a search on google for 'naples yellow' and that site came up. I was quite relieved not to see any mention of the urine of cows fed on mangoes...

Hear hear. Especially the 'a lot' part. I also find it helps to cross my eyes slightly to blur what I'm looking at and thereby get an overall impression of the colour. Otherwise I tend to get too tied up in minute modulations and miss the big picture.

Of course I'm quite aware that for many painters, colour is a personal thing, a method of expression, and they may not be trying to match the colours they see. For me, colour defines light, matching the colours in nature is an important part of learning to see.

Speaking of jumping in late...! I started reading this thread before it really took off, and since my palette is by no means limited (nor do I have any immediate plans to limit it) I felt I had not much to say on the subject.

But I've been reading all this with interest, and it occurs to me that we've all whittled down our palettes to serve us well. Not that we don't ever change--I'm always interested in trying a new color--but only time will tell whether I continue using the new color, replace an old color with a new one, or stop using it and go back to the old color.

You were talking about high chroma colors. I was looking at the new newsletter from PSoA and the article on Jacob Collins. Though I admire the restrained colors in his work, I realize that his palette (or maybe his way of using the colors on his palette) would not work for me because I basically see color in a totally different way. And the way I see color is consistent across the board for portraits and landscapes. I do a lot of both genre, and my palette is a result of what works for both. High chroma colors work for me for two reasons.

One reason is that, when complementaries are mixed together, they make neutrals that can be as dark or as light as I need.

The other reason is that I try to find (and this is an ongoing process) colors that are the most versatile. For instance, thalo green is in some ways the most annoying color in existence. But it (and thalo blue) mixed with tons of white makes in my opinion the best light-filled sky color near the horizon, and also an excellent dark green (when mixed with the appropriate other colors) in nature, or in certain colors of clothing, etc.

So I'm thinking of "limited palette" also in terms of color efficiency. I'm sure with all our different ways of seeing, we are trying to find the most efficient palette for our needs.

I do think a palette that is chosen has a lot to do with what your style is.
Jacob Collins work is of the brown school and deals mainly with form. His color is local and depends on the form for its value. Monet's palette is of the impressionist school and deals mainly with color and light; ie. form is rendered only as a consequence of the objects chroma vis-a-vis their relative value in a field of light.

Sargent chose, it seems, to have his brush in both worlds.

I come late to this discussion but after much trial and error over about 6 years, I keep coming back to some specific colors that seem to work the best for flesh. I have boxes of paint around here but keep returning to some old colors that seem cleaner and more life like.

One major change that I have taken recently is the discovery of Williamsburgs flake white. Since I have started using this I no longer am using medium. I am using it thick and rough. Think Rembrandt or Freud. I was using Old Holland cremnitz, but the Williamsburg is more so. I haven't tried Michael Hardings paint, but would like to.

It has recently occurred to me that I can use lots of oil with the darks, but not with the lights, Darks are thin, lights are built up.

I keep returning to an old tube of Doaks vermilion for my flesh. I have tried everything else . I keep Williamsburgs pyrelene crimson on my palette but often when I use it the painting gets too cold. Vermillion and ivory black make a cleaner crimson substitute. Also I eliminated raw sienna and replaced it with yellow ochre . Naples yellow genuine is good for lightening dark areas without getting cooler. I like Williamsburgs terra rosa for a brown instead of burnt umber.
In short at this time for portrait and figurative I guess my palette would be

Pyrelene crimson (maybe)
Genuine vermilion( the warm variety)
green ochre(dark cool ochre)
yellow ochre
naples yellow
raw umber
terra rosa(Italian earth brown)
viridian
ivory black
cerulean blue or cobalt turquoise
ultramarine (if I needed it)
flake white
flake/ titanium white(only for the brightest white highlights)


I have shifted away from using anything cold, away from crimson and blue. I try to use the vermilion and the ivory black instead of the crimson and blue as my coolest colors. Vermilion mixed with black for my deep shadows. It seems to make a cleaner brown.

In short I am using mostly vermilion, yellow ochre, ivory black, raw umber, terra rosa, and flake white.

Linda:

I strongly urge you to try the following flesh palette for it's simplicity, effectiveness, and ease of set up.

Lay out a string of grays starting with black, and add white in steps until you have seven to nine values.

Lay out WN Alizarin Crimson Perm., starting full strength and lighten with white to match the values of black in the row above.

Lay out your yellow string with straight burnt umber (Old Holland is best), and lighten with yellow ocher until a middle value, which is pure yellow ocher, and then lightend the remainder of the string with white to match the strings above.

With a little practice, you should be able to hit 99% of your flesh color needs with this palette.

FYI: You can get greens from the yO and grays; purples and violets from the alizarin and gray mixes. Obviously greens temper or neutralize red. Violets go nicely around the eyes, and a dull green underpainting serves the lower half of men's faces. Of course, most of the ivory black/white mixes will read as blue when used as is.

Lay out the strings horizontaly, but work vertically . . . that is, if working from the third lightest value, select reds, yellow or grays from the third vertical row. This will keep all of your values the same. Try it. You'lll catch on quickly.

Lemme know how it works.

I found Scott Christensen's pallette interesting. He uses the three primaries, plus white, plus several grays.

Some of his grays are bought as is. Others he mixes and puts into tubes himself. He has cool, warm, and "ochre" grays. He says that most of the colors you mix will be some variation of gray anyway. It can take a long time to mix them from pure colors, so why not start with grays and bend them with one or more primaries?

He says he can't tell the difference between the paintings he did with a full pallete and his more recent ones with his gray pallette.

He's a landscape painter. Not portrait.

Do I know you? Where can I see a sample of your work? I thank you for your advice but I'm happy with what I'm doing now. I know how to mix colors. I've been painting in mediums other than oil since 1964.
The colors that I have settled with are also the colors that Zorn settled with. I'm in good company with my choices and my methods.