Color plunge!

[Richard Budig]

I see someone has suggested the red/yellow/black/white minimum palette (is that spelled right? I always forget how to spell palette).

Another good way to start is to use the warm/cool combination of burn sienna, raw umber, and white, and sometimes, black. Here, too, the range of color and temperature is surprising.

Also, a Spanish guy by the name of Jose Parramon, in his book, The Big Book of Oil Color, shows you how to make every color there is using cad yellow medium, alizarin crimson, Prussian blue and white. It doesn't take long to get into this system, either, and the doing of it will teach you some valuable information about color mixing.

I find that, for flesh tones, I use very few colors, anymore. Cad red, yellow ocher, burnt sienna, raw umber and white. For blacks, aliz crim, burnt sienna and a ultramarine blue. You can make it warmer or cooler by controling the amount of aliz or blue that you use.

Since flesh cools as it gets lighter (usually) I find I can get a bit of a spike in value/tone by adding a tiny amount of cobalt blue or viridian to change the temperature of those really light tones, which usually contrasts well, and stands out from the general warm tones of surrounding flesh colors.

My red, yellow, sienna and umber palette lets me make oranges and browns, and the umber cools the reds and oranges nicely. It also makes intersting greens when mixed with yellow (ocher) or any other yellow. And of course, green and red make yet another kind of brown . . . so you see, it's all kind of a personal journey, anyway.

Finally, I studied with an old artist (Charles Cross, of Loveland, CO.) who used to say, "Behind every successful artist are many square miles of used up canvas."