Limited Palette

[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.

[Paul Foxton]

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:

coveted for its soft glowing light and mixing qualities, this classic pale Naples is close to but brighter than our Dutch Yellow while being as warm and opaque as the Cadmium Yellow Light, yet less harsh

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.

[Allan Rahbek]

Originally Posted by Paul Foxton

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

[Paul Foxton]

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.

[Sharon Knettell]

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.

[Paul Foxton]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

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

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...

[Allan Rahbek]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

Paul,

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

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

[Sharon Knettell]

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.

[Sharon Knettell]

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.

[Richard Bingham]

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 . . .