Limited Palette

[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 !