[Timothy C. Tyler]

The key to a good palette is being able to use the colors on it. Good palettes are like good baseball bats;they are only good if one knows how to use them. As a teacher I will go around a room of 24 students and every time I sit down I am seeing a new mixture of colors, placed in new places with differing brands and qualities of paint. Even the brushes are different. This matters not.

Cooks do not discuss how to cook with only 7 food items. More is better, but knowing how to cook is the best way to be successful. Artists can try every artist's palette ever and fail or succeed purely according to their knowledge and skill.

To continue with the cooking analogy, recipes are good points of departure. Master chefs in restaurants do not have their noses in cook books. They have written the recipes on their hearts. They have come to understand the strengths and characteristics of the many choices. They alter these to their own preferences to achieve the effect they desire for that particular result. Painters must come to this place to. Palette formulas are the artist's recipes. A good place to start and move from.

Additionally, painters like chefs, should understand the benefits of all colors (tastes). To flat deny a painter any and all color choices is the same as denying a chef certain ingredients. A skilled chef might make do but having the full range of options would be better.

But place an unskilled cook in the best kitchen in the world and without knowledge, the results will be unimpressive.