Limited Palette

[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 . . .

[Paul Foxton]

Originally Posted by Allan Rahbek

stays bright in mixtures

I see what you mean, I don't know how good my monitor is (I suspect not very,) but the golden ochre looks like the only one to have kept it's warmth after mixing with white.

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

One of the reasons I like his paint is it doesn't suede as badly

Now that's interesting - I take it you mean that effect of different brush stroke directions catching the light and looking like a mowed lawn? That's been bothering me lately on a couple of dark backrounds. I'm hoping to get into London next Saturday and get some - I'll let you know how I get on.

That's very interesting about Monet's palette. Especially the vermilion, to me anyway. Yesterday I was trying to match the colour of a tomato with alizarin and cadmium yellow light, and it was a bit of a battle. I almost broke down and got a brighter red out but I stuck with it and it didn't come out too bad. I suspect any colour shortcomings are much more down to me than to my paint right now

Richard, I didn't quite get the headroom part, but this:

Originally Posted by Richard Bingham

A painter might work for months using only raw siena, ultramarine and white and never quite plumb all the possibilities . . .

makes a lot of sense to me. Even with just my five colours I get a bit bewildered by the range available, and I'm at least partly aware of how little of it I've mapped. Every time I use them I find something else I can do with them, but what surprises me the most is how close I can get to colours in nature with just those five. Like I said earlier I tend to think that if I'm having trouble getting a colour right, it's because I just haven't the necessary experience yet to get it.

[Sharon Knettell]

One of the reasons I like a limited palette is I can play the colors more or less like a piano. I know where they all are and what they do vis-a-vis each other.

I sometimes add others like a cobalt violet etc.

Right now a pink garment I am painting needs a little clear pink, so I am adding touches of cadmium red light.

The Vermilion works beautifully in skin-tones and is much easier to control than the Cadmium red.

I saw the Monet show in Boston several years ago. The color was shimmering. I have seen many artists who use every paint color available fail to even come close to what he achieved with his limited palette.

[Richard Bingham]

Originally Posted by Paul Foxton

Richard, I didn't quite get the headroom part . . .

My misapplication of the term, Paul. What I meant is that in life, we're presented with a value range from the brilliance of the sun itself to near absence of light in deep shadow. In comparison, art materials provide only a severely truncated range between black and white, so successful illusions rely upon further compressing this limited range so the viewer may "believe" our white is a sunburst, or our black a stygian shadow. The better the control of a compressed range of values, the more "headroom" remains available for ultimate contrasts by reserving the limits of our range for accents.

Chroma (or intensity) presents similar limitations and problems. If all the elements of a painting are high-chroma, there's no "headroom" for stating the incredible intensity of , say, a flower, or using the power of intense color to make a statement or emphasize, or lead the eye.

[Paul Foxton]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

One of the reasons I like a limited palette is I can play the colors more or less like a piano. I know where they all are and what they do vis-a-vis each other.

Indeed, this is exactly what I'm trying to teach myself, just my piano has a few less keys. Five is quite enough to get confusing for me

Richard, thanks, now I understand exactly what you mean. It's funny, I've been trying to get my head around this very thing lately, and you've crystalised it for me perfectly.

I recently had some trouble with a painting, trying to match the intensity of the highlights on a piece of white cloth. I've been getting a bit obsessive with matching the colours of nature as closely as I can, so I'm always questioning whether or not some colours are impossible to match, although I may be thinking more of value than chroma. I've
wondered on occaision whether it would make sense to put in the lightest highlight first, and work down from there, using values relative to that highlight rather than the values in 'reality'.

It wasn't until after I finished this painting the other day that it struck me that I was facing the window, so my canvas was in shadow. Big head-slapping moment. Of course my white paint wasn't as light as the highlight on the cloth,
it was in shadow! But it got me thinking about the differences between the small world I'm trying to make in my painting, and the reality out there, and whether sometimes you have to depart from reality in order to make something appear more - real.

I suspect I'm not exlaining this nearly as clearly as you did, but I hope you get the idea. I should probably mention that I'm just learning right now, which is why I'm spending some time trying to match colours in nature, nature being the best teacher.

Originally Posted by Richard Bingham

using the power of intense color to make a statement or emphasize, or lead the eye.

Now don't start on that, I've got enough to think about as it is!

[Richard Bingham]

Paul, I'm gratified to be of some small help. Here's another suggestion:
Make a couple of value scales in neutral grey, swatches about an inch by three inches wide, "pure white" at the top, "dead black" at the bottom, and eight stops between.

When you approach your subject, assess a "local" value for light and shadow. For example, if you number the scale with black being "1", a white cloth on a table may be value 9, in shadow # 6, say,depending on the lighting. The shift of three values will hold true across the board.

That means if an apple on the cloth may have a "local" value of 5 in light, its shadow will shift on the scale three places to 2, same as the cloth.

It's my contention that color simply falls into place if grey-scale values are correct.

[Sharon Knettell]

Richard,

That is a really good point, as a matter of fact I paint with a pre-mixed grey scale. I use them to mix with my colors. I do not use, as a rule complementaries to cut the value of my chroma.I started to do this after I realized Sargent once commented to an impressionist, that he could not imagine how to make form without black.

As to my previous statement about black and white being more intellectual than color, I really should have said FORM which is more considered than color, which is more from the unconscious.

As to Liberace's palette, a won't comment, but I am personally more drawn to Monet's work, who was able to do transcendent work with such an economy of means. I have had the opportunity to see a good deal of his work in person, and to my opinion there are few if any painters that can touch him today.

Beth, I do not particularly prefer earth colors per se and I don't see my work as particulatly earth-toned.

I think we al have to find out what works for each of us, however, i think starting out with a limited palette helps one step into the world of color.