Limited Palette

[Michele Rushworth]

Why is Gold Ochre Transparent, Venetian & Indian Reds necessary too?

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.

[Mischa Milosevic]

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

[Richard Budig]

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.

[Paul Foxton]

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

Originally Posted by Michele Rushworth

Many artists feel that a limited palette is easier to learn on.

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.

[Michele Rushworth]

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

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.)

[Sharon Knettell]

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.

[Richard Budig]

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.