Very limited palette
 

After puttering with practically every palette I could find, I have to say that I believe I can paint 95% of most skin tones with nothing more than cad red light, yellow ocher, black (ivory) and white.

And I say this with all due respect to every palette in the world, both from living and dead artists.

I don't mean to imply that using only two colors and black and white is, or should be, the only way. It isn't, of course. It's nice to have enough color on your palette that you can dip into whatever you need and use it with little modification.

For me, it was more a confidence thing. The more variations I could mix with this very restricted palette, the better I felt and the more I learned.

Hi Richard.

You have a good point there. It is like knowing your instrument as the tool it is.
This was Anders Zorn

Rubens is said to have used only the same four colors for all his skintones, with the exception of Venetian Red instead of Cad Red Light.

Another limited palette!!
 

I have recently begun using only magenta, phalo blue, yellow light, white and a cad red. I am amazed at the range of colours I can mix with just these few tubes. Especially when depicting figures in bright sunlight.
I am now wondering what to do with my dozens of expensive tubes of paint.

Has anyone else tried this palette??

Hi Margaret, you haven't posted for a long time, welcome back!

I'm just wondering if you get all the various shades of outdoor greens that your heart desires with this palette.

John Burton, well known plein aire painter from Arizona, works with a very limited palette, too. (one red, one yellow, one blue, plus white.) Every six months or so he switches to a different set of red/yellow/blue colors to see how he likes those. You could stick with the palette you have for a while, then when you run out, try a different trio.

Another limited palette
 

Here is a limited palette espoused by Jose Parramon in his book, Theh Big Book Of Oil Color. It works fine. He gives many descriptions of making every color there is, including earth colors, with these few colors:

Alizarin Crimson
Cad Yellow Medium
Prussian Blue
White

Prussian Blue is a very powerful color, and so you can get some industrial strength greens from it with CYM.

CYM and AC will give you reds going from "true" red out to the orange reds.

All three mixed in various combination will give cold, neutral and warm blacks.

Right now, I'm using vermilion, a mix of yellow ocher and cad yellow medium. burnt sienna, cobalt blue and raw umber. For very dark darks (warm or cool) I use aliz crimson, ultramarine blue, and burnt sienna. You can get very warm or very cool darks with this.

I took a workshop with Shane Neal last spring, and one exercise was to paint from life with five colors: white, ultramarine blue, cad yellow medium (I think), cad red light, and alizarin crimson. Not just the skin tones, but the whole painting. My model had near black hair, and after some brief struggle, I even got a deep black with the same colors. I didn't find it any more daunting than painting with my usual palette.

As you might guess, my result was much fresher, less labored and really satisfying to have done, more so than a subsequent painting of the same model and lighting with the fuller palette. It really opened my eyes.

I'm beginning to think that the curse of living in our society and our time is the curse of too much choice.

(But I still wouldn't want to grind them.)

Best--TE

I get great results with raspberry jam and peanut butter, washed down with grape juice; on white bread, of course.

Marvin--

Always thought your work looked good enough to eat... Haw!

Best as always--TE

(Though come to think of it, the luscious array of colors on the Mattleson/Paxton palette obscures the fact that it's mixed from only four basic colors plus white and black. Not counting the bread.)

Hey, VanGogh used to eat his paints. Wonder if that was before or after he went off the deep end....

No wonder he was so Flake(y). You are what you eat.

a delicious palette!
 

Raspberry jam, indeed. Marvin!!

In my part of the world, if the ants didn't get it, the cockies would, and failing that, the mouse loves peanut butter! Imagine the mold! A hole new perspective on art!

Has anyone had the pleasure of sampling the chocolate portraits on display on a sidewalk somewhere in New York? Now there is a palette I am very partial to. :)

amendment to my previous palette!
 

The yellow is called Spectrum Yellow.

To Linda,
yes it seems you can get a good range of greens with these limited colours. I have more experimenting to do at this stage but my mauves, pinks, ochres etc are beautiful.

Benefits
 

The benefit to a limited palette is uniformity. I think it's very good for all artists to be able to use one. To know enough about color mixing to make a few colors work.

The down side is range of hue etc. Too much color-too much over-use of colors can make a work "hard to look at" - busy & garish. I like to have as many options as there are and then use judgement in their employment. My palette is different for every subject. I own 60 or 70 hues and admixture (hues) but use only 12-16 for most pictures-less even for some.

I am and have been since studying with Marvin Mattelson - still using his simplified palette of terra rosa, indian red, yellow ochre pale, yellow ochre, ivory black and raw umber. I use flake white #2 also. I am continuously amazed that I stick with this palette and find every skin value I could possibly need as well as intensity and color while using this palette for skintones. I may add colors for fabrics, furniture, etc. but rarely have to add many.


I have said it many times - but one more time is never enough - thanks to Marvin - I have confidence in what I am painting and am selling my work as a result.

After all - Marvin did all the homework for me - so the least I can do is thank him many times over - and this is very sincere!

Denise

Limited palette
 

I hope I am not intruding on the original post here. I am presently learning many things at once in oils. Layers technique etc. I am about to reach the stage of my color layers in a portrait and have chosen this palette, looking for something very simple for one who does not have that much confidence in mixing oils. I would like to give a description of my palette for your critique and all critiques will be most welcome. Better to find out the weaknesses before I start.

My palette will center around nine values of neutral gray plus black and white. Those grays will be mixed with White, Raw Umber and Black, using some red if needed in the lower values.

I have chosen Yellow Ochre for the first color to be laid out in a horizontal row and mixing values to correspond with the neutral grays above it. The same procedure will be used for my second color, Cadmium Red.

I will mix my flesh tones in vertical rows, there by leaving me free to concentrate on intensity, temperature etc. of my mixes without having to worry about losing the value I have chosen for a specific area.

For the clothing and background I will proceed with the same palette making extra horizontal rows beneath the flesh colors with colors that are needed.

It

Wilma
 

Wilma, I welcome your post and it's an interesting idea. Let me say some general things first. What you must learn to do is understand what all the colors can do for you. I am not a habit guy. I am not a rule guy. There are many basics you can learn, but as you learn them deeply you'll begin to dismiss them. It is like using recipes or really knowing how to cook. The chefs know, so they don't use recipes. I have a basic palette on my site and a secondary list of extras you may find helpful.

For example, you can make many neutrals but it's nice to have some of them from the tube. Thalo blue you may very rarely need.

There are as many palettes as there are painters. You will find one that fits your own style.

Denise, I'm so happy that the palette is giving you the control that you were seeking. I know that keeping your color in check was an issue of great concern and I'm thrilled that you have overcome this problem and are selling your work. The satisfaction I receive from hearing stories like yours always warms my heart. I understand how important getting more proficient is for my students and I take the responsibility of giving them my all quite seriously. I'll gladly accept your praise any day.

Wilma, the palette you propose is very similar to the palette I use and have shared with my students, so I applaud you on what I perceive to be your great instincts. The results, like those stated by Denise, are pretty much universally shared. If people follow my lead and give it a sincere effort they can achieve great things in a short amount of time. You can check out the works of bothTim Mensching and Joe Daily who both use my palette.

The difference between what you propose and what I use is in the reds. I eschew cadmiums in the flesh as did the vast majority of painters before the twentieth century since cadmiums weren't available. Masters such as Lawrence, Raeburn, Bouguereau and Velasquez didn't use cadmiums in their complexions. Neither did Paxton, who although he had access to cadmiums, employed earth reds instead and produced the most luminous and lifelike complexions I've ever seen.

I use two strings of reds, one mixed with Terra Rosa and the other with Indian Red. These combined with the ochers (darkened with raw umber) and neutrals can provide me with all the nuances of flesh in natural light. Other colors can sometimes be required to depict reflected lights in the shadows. As Denise said I do add other colors but I find that the addition of Ultramarine Blue, Viridian and Alizarin Crimson Permanent I can achieve a myriad of color possibilities. I am constantly amazed at how much more I am able to squeeze out of this simple arrangement with each ensuing painting.

It is my opinion, based on my experience as an artist and teacher, when it comes to color, more is indeed not better. I pursued a non cadmium palette because I found that my students struggled with trying to contain the overpowering strength of cadmiums and I looked to those painters I admired the most to see what they used. It worked for me and the rest, as they say, is history.

Good luck to you.

Reds
 

What would you say was the difference between those two reds; Indian Red and Terra Rosa? Marvin

Of the "brick" reds which one do you use most? Many painters find the earth reds lead to flat , dull colors due to their opaque nature. Sargent used only one for example then sparingly. Sargent used Mars Orange and cadmium red. Earth reds also tend to cost the painter transparency in the halftones and darks. Many artists have dropped the color completely from their palettes because of these traits.

This Godward for example has little earth red color in it.

Timothy thank you very much for your input and encouragement.

Marvin I will certainly look into what you have suggested and it did very much encourage me that I was on the right track by some miracle. :)

This palette that I am refering to is called the Jack Reilly palette. Mr. Reilly was director of the Art Students League of New York for many years and this was the palette he used for his beginning students. Mr. Farraggaso, first a student of his, then a teacher in the school and after Mr. Reilly's passing became director of it for many years also, wrote a book called "The Students Guide tp Painting" of which I have a copy and it is based on Mr. Reilly's teaching. Mentioning this to let you know where I obtained the information in case you were interested. The book has been long out of print and hard to find.

I have been observing your paintings along with many others and admire them greatly. I will now go look at those you have suggested, I believe there is something here posted on your palette already, I read so much here on the site have trouble keeping up with it, but it caught my eye and will go check this out.

Again thank you very much for your generous input.

Wilma

Wilma
 

Wilma, the easiest way to choose a palette from which to depart (or begin) is by looking the works of painters you like and see what they did or do. You also would be wise to look at the award winning painters of today you like best and investigate their palettes. One of these I'd suggest is Nelson Shanks. His palette is listed on SOG somewhere... it is vast and variable according to his subject. The reason for looking into living painters is that colors have improved greatly over the last 30 years. Best wishes, Tim

Timothy thank you again for your input. I take all comments very seriously and appreciate them very much and follow up on them by doing what has been suggested. I don't feel like I can comment any furthor for I am inexperienced in this field, therefore have no experience to base a comment on. But I want everyone to know that I really appreciate you and others taking time from what must be very busy schedules to post their thoughts on this. I have admired your work and others here for many years.

Wilma

Tim,
Just wanted to thank you for that comment coming at a very opportune time for me. I just finished a pair of paintings, brother and sister... and when I put them side by side, she looked 'muddy' compared to him. Read your post and realized I'd used a more opaque red in the half-tones and shadows so reworked her face with a transparent red, and she no longer looks muddy :)... It's hard to see on the jpegs, but in person, there's a big difference in how the painting reads!

Terri
 

Terri, you're going to be a star on our new student page on the website! I'm glad it helped-nothing like good timing huh?

If you capture it on a jpeg it would be fun to see the difference!

Well, on my monitor,anyway, this is a before and after of the difference, calibrated to how it looks in person.

What a difference a monitor makes!
 

Well... pulled up the forum over at a friends, and everything looked completely different on her (huge) old-fashioned monitor. The curved screen made things look distorted (to my eye which is used to an LCD monitor), the colors/contrast/brightness were all very different. So subtleties like the difference in reds above may be hopeless to try to convey! :bewildere What an eye opener. I'm going to have to get out my old monitor and connect it once in awhile to try to optimize images for both types of display!

Wilma, The palette you are referring to was created by Frank Reilly. There are many versions but all are based on cadmiums. I studied the Reilly method with John Murray and taught it for many years as well. I changed it because of the difficulty students were having in controlling the cadmiums.

If you are learning to paint it would be a mistake, in my opinion, to use a palette that has a plethora of colors. It can be very confusing as Denise, who was using such a palette before studying with me, can attest to.

Tim, I find Godward's flesh very dense and far from the kind of luminous skin tone I'm interested in achieving. He was good at fabric but could have used my workshop to improve the waxy complexions he painted. Sargent, for all his brilliance didn't come close to achieving the kind of luminosity that Paxton or Bouguereau did. Nor was he interested in doing so, or he would have been using different colors.

Paxton said that since we come from dust and we return to dust when painting people we should use pigments made from dust.

Terra Rosa and Indian Red need to be used properly to tap into their great potential. Using them the way that one would use cadmiums would indeed produce a dull result. There is nothing lacking with the pigments themselves. Those who choose to study with me are very clear about the proper way to best utilize these pigments' potential.

The bottom line is that they work for me and the myriad of students that come to me looking to take it to the next level.

Marvin, I didn't mention Jack Reilly for I didn't know if it would be proper or not, new to the forum and all. I have the book authored by Jack Faragasso that is based on Mr. Reilly's teachings, "A Student's Guide to Painting" and it was from this book I gained much knowledge in values when I was doing graphite portraits which will only help in learning oils. I was especially interested in the way he lays out his palette also. Is this similar to your palette as far as a beginning student is concerned? Well maybe you don't start with a beginning student such as I am for I am a beginning beginner :sunnysmil but if you did would you use his procedure?

Wilma

Control
 

Marvin, students should not get to set the tone or direction of any school by their inabilities. The instructors should teach them how "to handle" their mere tools. Because, paint and brushes are just tools.

Where would this logically end? With students using only 5 colors and 6 brushes they could handle? Learning isn't a completely comfortably enterprise. Indeed science tells us that education can actually make your brain tingle.

Woe! that students should run a classroom, that's the instructor's job. Students should leave a workshop or school way better than they came in-including not being unable "to handle" cadmiums.

Wilma, I teach students of all levels from those who have never painted to national award winners. I think that there is a tremendous amount of validity in the teaching of Frank Reilly. I have had far better results since I eliminated the cadmiums and switched to the earth colors.

Tim, I'm afraid we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Mr. Mattelson I am very sorry if my bad choice of words when asking my questions inferred I was trying to tell you what to do. I was just very happy that you were familiar with the method I had chosen and since from your experience you had made changes on paints connected with it I was naturally wondering if you had made any changes from that same experience with the method of approach for a beginner. A person like me has to begin somewhere and it gets confusing since there are so many approaches to consider. But there comes a time when you have to make a choice and I made mine. Thanks again for all your constructive help.

Wilma

Wilma, There was nothing wrong with your choice of words so there is nothing to be sorry about. I understood exactly what you were asking and tried to respond appropriately.

The Reilly palette arrangement, which is based on seeing value first and considering hue relative to value, followed the basic approach used for artists' academic training which was taught for centuries. That is until the Impressionists put color first and things spiraled downward from there. Fortunately, through the efforts of Reilly, and others like him, the basic tenants of this tradition were kept alive and have survived. Now there is a real momentum back to a more logical approach.

I find it quite ironic that the very colors that were championed by the impressionists, the cadmiums, are now embraced by many of those who claim to teach a traditional approach. My hero, Paxton, was an artist, who though academically trained, was able to marry the concept of impressionist color observation into the academic credo of seeing form first. My innovation was to transpose Reilly's palette arrangement over Paxton's choice of colors. Another marriage made in heaven, the way I see it. This of course eliminated using all cadmiums in the flesh. A move I've never even given a second thought.

Reilly studied with George Bridgeman and Frank Vincent DuMond who were students of Gerome. He was also an apprentice to Dean Cornwell the great illustrator and muralist. Reilly's teaching incorporates a tremendous amount of insight garnered from the above sources. The only thing I find questionable is the use of cadmiums in the flesh. Like all things in life, we need to sort through the options afforded us and cobble the best solution based on our own judgment. My only allegiance is to the effectiveness of what I employ. Show me a better way and I'm there.

Marvin, this whole section on color and another on palettes mentions several "better ways" as espoused many many of the members here. Many of the books featured here on SOG (in the ad section) mention better ways. You keep listing a hand full of painters that use your palette (or rather) you list the lineage of your teachers. You do realize that for every painter you list there are 200 world famous artists that don't?

As for the Impressionist's palette they were but one group in the entire world that began using the "new colors" (along with metal paint tubes) as these were introduced to the world at that time. Some of these people were Sargent, Sorolla and Waterhouse. It will be helpful the the young artists here to read the facts. There are entire books written about artists' palettes and the evolution of the art of painting. I only mention that here as a reminder.

The one truth one is left with from researching art history is that the are many ways to great painting. Most artists prefer having all the best new materials from which to choose so they can make the best work available. In the last 20 years all sort of new improved colors have been introduced to the market. None of these were used by Rembrandt or Raphael but theses painters would have loved these new tools.

Tim, I fully agree that there are many ways to achieve a great painting. The use of an earth pigment based palette has been proved time and again, to be one of them. The artists I singled out as having used such a palette, Raeburn, Paxton, Bougureau, Lawrence, Rembrandt and Velasquez, are in my opinion at the pantheon of great figurative painters.

Of these, Paxton and Bouguereau did indeed have the choice of using cadmiums but chose not to. Again, in my opinion, Sargent, Waterhouse and Sorolla were second tier, at best, so being the logical thinker that I am I've chosen to explore the earth toned palette. I painted with cadmiums for over twenty five years and have no desire to revisit them.

I refer to certain painters on occasion to give some historical relevance to the points I want to make. This is the basis of logical debate, to make a point and prove it. To offer conjecture, such as you do, as to what Rembrandt or Rafael would have used if they were alive today, has no relevance in a debate.

As far as what most artists do or don't do is also conjecture, unless you have taken a poll. Personally, I am of the opinion that because most people choose to do something it doesn't necessarily make it the best way at all. In fact, I believe that the best solution lies in what most people don't do.

You counseled Wilma to look t the works of contemporary award winning artists and explore exactly what their palette choices are. Good advice, in principle. Since I myself happen to be an award winning contemporary artist, I would encourage Wilma or anyone interested in luminosity and depth to look at my work and see what they think. If my work appeals to them then perhaps there is validity in what I have to offer.

Hi all,

I have had tremendous help from using the earth color based palette combined with deliberate use of the value system. I find that it is easier to hit the right color when using basic colors that are close to what I actually need.

Some weeks ago I went to the National Gallery in London where Rembrandt, among others, is represented with several of his best paintings. It was obvious that he went from using strong bright colors in his youth to more quiet colors as he grow as an artist. The later portraits was less colorful but more glowing from emotion. That was obviously a result of his mastering of the values AND the colors.

I have no objections against using Cadmiums or other new paints, but find that is

So, are we saying that a beginning student should or should not use the Reilly Palette?

I don't know about using it for an actual painting, or using the whole palette arrangement after you're painting at an advanced level (I'm not there yet :D ) but when I first started painting, the Faragasso book mentioned, and all the associated color exercises, was absolutely invaluable in fully understanding how to use color. Being self-taught, I'd have bounced around for years without that book. I literally painted hundreds of color charts from the Reilly pallete, including the charts Faragasso used to illustrate 'vibrating' a color with cool mixtures. Even before my drawing reached a decent student level, I had color down cold.

That said, however, I have since gone back to using two colors plus white and the various three color plus white and black mixtures outlines in Parramon's 'Big Book of Oil painting'. What I can today with just a couple colors is still kind of amazing to me.

Minh

Critique?
 

Marvin, since you posted this image here as part of this discussion on color, I assume you welcome a critique of it?

Comparison?
 

I would welcome a side by side comparison of several of your works next to mine if you like. Here are three you may use;

As a matter of comparison, I've put mine next to William Bouguereau. I'd invite you to do this. Bouguereau is of course much better, but it is fun to compare.

My my, it see we disagree on much. A poll is great idea. Maybe we could bring in thousands by introducing this on cowdisley and goodart maybe ARC. Maybe I could buy an add in American Artist and see where the votes fall... maybe the paint companies could share the sales numbers for cadmiums. But you're right, the results on the canvas are what matter. And the results directly result from the ability of the painter.

If you don't wish to be critiqued here or compared to my paintings as I invite , maybe you could compare your work with the people you listed as I did. That might impress me to your way of thinking.