Limited Palette

[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]

Originally Posted by Richard Bingham

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

This is where I part company somewhat.

Black and white is intellectual, color is emotional.

You CAN learn color scales and values to SOME extent, but I have never seen a good colorist who has simply LEARNED color. It is after the bacics are learned, ie: complementaries etc. that real color understanding comes in, it becomes a process of the unconscious.

It is the difference between a Van Cliburn, and a church pianist, both of them knows where the keys are, have learned the scales, etc., but only one soars, and that is not just from the intellect.

[Richard Bingham]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

This is where I part company somewhat.
Black and white is intellectual, color is emotional.

Hm. I don't think we're really of divergent opinions , Sharon, and I'd far prefer to remain in your company !

I agree entirely color is emotional (and personal). I disagree (somewhat) that black and white is intellectual; value contrasts are the essence of lighting, which also provide a good measure of emotion. Think of the "mystery" inherent in a face or figure lit from below, as from a bonfire or footlights . . . or the peacefulness of even, gentle light from above, as in a bucolic landscape . . . or the melancholia of waning light low and from one side, as in an autumn sunset.

To continue the piano metaphor, above, I'm speaking more to the problem of figuring out which part of the piano makes the sounds come out. In the initial phases of learning to paint, we're first concerned with forming a credible illusion. When values are wrong, the illusion fails, independent of any color. If values are correct, a believable illusion results. Only then can color and its nuances be addressed.

[Elizabeth Schott]

So are we saying a limited palette is the number of colors or the kind of colors on the palette?

Sharon I liked Marvin's palette too, but I have always been a bit wild with color that's why I was drawn to Liberace (he works good with all of these piano analogies). I don't understand how you can do Marvin's palette without keeping total focus on your values, isn't that what his is all about? Perhaps you just like the "earth" colors.

Paul regarding;

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 believe that near the end, this was the technique that Rembrandt practiced. He would use these brush strokes to reflect light instead of adding the whites. This is in addition to keeping the lights thicker. I love to see paintings that utilize this, I wonder if Alex did on her beautiful self portrait.

Well if you are having a rainy day and want to bring a bit of mania into your work, her is my palette with the foundation from Liberace's. My colors are either Old Holland or Studio Products.


Burnt Sienna
Cad Yellow Light * ** ***
Cad Orange
Intense Vermilion
Cad Red Light
Pyrralo Ruby * ***
Alizarin Crimson **
Cobalt Violet Light
Cobalt Violet Med
Manganese Violet
Cobalt Blue Turquoise Light ***
Cobalt Blue Turquoise
Cerulean Blue
Ultramarine Blue
Phthalo Green **
Viridian Green Light
Flake White * **

Very basics -
* mid (

[Richard Bingham]

Beth, what I consider a limited palette is an outgrowth of the earth palettes of the "old masters", whose color choices were limited by availability in the first case, and economics next .

Some painters like to mimic printing process CYMK (cyan, or blue, yellow, magenta, black) limiting their palettes to basic primaries, but I feel a high chroma palette however simplified is not a "limited palette" in the sense we're speaking.

The high chroma palette you list is no doubt extended by preferences for subtle nuances of color variations which most painters will need lengthy experience painting to appreciate.

For example, depending on the colorman, many on the list become redundant - there's little "working" difference between vermilion and cad red lt., or pyrol ruby and alizarin, and mixtures with cad yellow lt. will yield a high-chroma orange. Similarly, the violets overlap as do the turquoises, and pthalo and viridian. I note there are NO earth colors other than bt. siena, and no black . . .

Mind you, I'm not saying one may not come to require these colors, and a single pigment will always be more brilliant than a mixture. This palette was no doubt developed by a colorist who has made specific choices based on personal taste and long experience. I'd feel it's a safe bet that not just anyone's pyrol ruby or turquoise shade would suit, either !

[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.