Very limited palette

[Terri Ficenec]

Originally Posted by Timothy C. Tyler

Many painters find the earth reds lead to flat , dull colors due to their opaque nature. . . . 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.

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!

[Timothy C. Tyler]

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!

[Terri Ficenec]

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

[Terri Ficenec]

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! 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!

[Marvin Mattelson]

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.

[Wilma Hill]

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 but if you did would you use his procedure?

Wilma

[Timothy C. Tyler]

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.

[Marvin Mattelson]

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.

[Marvin Mattelson]

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.

[Allan Rahbek]

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