Working With a Limited Palette

  

    Whychus Creek, 20x24 @2010

(Sorry about the glare specks in the water - the painting it still wet)

I've been painting with a limited palette.  The above painting was done using a variation on the classical palette but taking advantage of the development in fine pigments today.  The specific palette for this painting consists of four transparents: Transparent Red Oxide, Van Dyck Brown, raw sienna, and French Ultramarine, with a touch (only to modify the color of the water) of viridian.  The semi-opaques are natural yellow ochre, gold ochre ( for more pigment load) and cobalt blue.  I use zinc white because it is also considered transparent, less chalky.  And I have recently discovered the beauty of Ultramarine violet, which can lose it's pigment load quickly when mixed, but is perfect for graying down a color. 

Also, Gamblin has a series of premixed grays that are useful in  moderation.  It took me some experimentation before I found how to use these opaque pigments that can suck up the color intensity very quickly and move everything toward the cooler spectrum. 

One of the skills I've come to appreciate - and which they don't have enough time to teach you in a generalized art program - is how to mix color.  I think sooner or later every serious artist wants to - or needs to learn how to mix the colors they need and do it consistently.  I've managed to achieve  color harmony in the past by using pre-mixed, out of the tube paint with only slight modification, but I feel like I've exhausted myself with the effort and the surface quality of the painting feels forced or contrived.  It's almost not worth the battle.

I began to paint small studies with the challenge to find my colors through mixing alone, just to teach myself how to do it.  I did this after reading an article by Andrea J. Smith on Artist's Daily. I'm a great admirer of Andrea's work, and maybe one day when I grow up I will actually be able to visit her Atelier Canova in Italy and study there.  But when we can't always get the information we need from going to a place, we have to find it through every other method available to us.  As I've said before on this blog, an artist never stops learning.

Here is the link to Andrea's Limited Palette article on Artist's Daily.

Comments

[poster prints]

I think an artist can really benefit from choosing just a few colors for a particular painting. It's very difficult though if you're addicted to color (like I am :-)) I enjoy working in watercolor and I find that I tend to collect colors. I even want to try out some of the more obscure ones that Daniel Smith is now producing. I have to force myself to only paint with 5 or 6 colors though or my paintings don't look "consolidated".

[Retro Jordans]

The only thing we can handle is to cherish what we have now, our career, dream, friends and lover.

[Air Jordan shoes]

Life is only if the "first meet ", that would be...

[Sue Smith]

John -watercolor is a challenge,but so beautiful. Ive been told the same principles apply as to using transparents to avoid getting muddy - or rather undefined color.As Michael says, once you get it, its a real sense of freedom.

Michael - thank you, too, for your comment. I never completely got the purpose of color mixing until I had painted for several years and realized there was so much more I could do with paint than just duplicate local color. By the way, I have about 10 different tubes of various greens if anyone out there needs some.

-------Original Message-------

[Michael Fraley]

I love working with a limited palette - I love mixing my colours from basic primaries, and it gives me a real sense of freedom. Thanks so much for your post.

[John Garrett]

Great article Sue! I am struggling with color mixing myself in Watercolor. I am also trying to develop an art career after 50. :0)