Limited Palette

[Sharon Knettell]

I do think a palette that is chosen has a lot to do with what your style is.
Jacob Collins work is of the brown school and deals mainly with form. His color is local and depends on the form for its value. Monet's palette is of the impressionist school and deals mainly with color and light; ie. form is rendered only as a consequence of the objects chroma vis-a-vis their relative value in a field of light.

Sargent chose, it seems, to have his brush in both worlds.

[Linda Ciallelo]

I come late to this discussion but after much trial and error over about 6 years, I keep coming back to some specific colors that seem to work the best for flesh. I have boxes of paint around here but keep returning to some old colors that seem cleaner and more life like.

One major change that I have taken recently is the discovery of Williamsburgs flake white. Since I have started using this I no longer am using medium. I am using it thick and rough. Think Rembrandt or Freud. I was using Old Holland cremnitz, but the Williamsburg is more so. I haven't tried Michael Hardings paint, but would like to.

It has recently occurred to me that I can use lots of oil with the darks, but not with the lights, Darks are thin, lights are built up.

I keep returning to an old tube of Doaks vermilion for my flesh. I have tried everything else . I keep Williamsburgs pyrelene crimson on my palette but often when I use it the painting gets too cold. Vermillion and ivory black make a cleaner crimson substitute. Also I eliminated raw sienna and replaced it with yellow ochre . Naples yellow genuine is good for lightening dark areas without getting cooler. I like Williamsburgs terra rosa for a brown instead of burnt umber.
In short at this time for portrait and figurative I guess my palette would be

Pyrelene crimson (maybe)
Genuine vermilion( the warm variety)
green ochre(dark cool ochre)
yellow ochre
naples yellow
raw umber
terra rosa(Italian earth brown)
viridian
ivory black
cerulean blue or cobalt turquoise
ultramarine (if I needed it)
flake white
flake/ titanium white(only for the brightest white highlights)


I have shifted away from using anything cold, away from crimson and blue. I try to use the vermilion and the ivory black instead of the crimson and blue as my coolest colors. Vermilion mixed with black for my deep shadows. It seems to make a cleaner brown.

In short I am using mostly vermilion, yellow ochre, ivory black, raw umber, terra rosa, and flake white.

[Richard Budig]

Linda:

I strongly urge you to try the following flesh palette for it's simplicity, effectiveness, and ease of set up.

Lay out a string of grays starting with black, and add white in steps until you have seven to nine values.

Lay out WN Alizarin Crimson Perm., starting full strength and lighten with white to match the values of black in the row above.

Lay out your yellow string with straight burnt umber (Old Holland is best), and lighten with yellow ocher until a middle value, which is pure yellow ocher, and then lightend the remainder of the string with white to match the strings above.

With a little practice, you should be able to hit 99% of your flesh color needs with this palette.

FYI: You can get greens from the yO and grays; purples and violets from the alizarin and gray mixes. Obviously greens temper or neutralize red. Violets go nicely around the eyes, and a dull green underpainting serves the lower half of men's faces. Of course, most of the ivory black/white mixes will read as blue when used as is.

Lay out the strings horizontaly, but work vertically . . . that is, if working from the third lightest value, select reds, yellow or grays from the third vertical row. This will keep all of your values the same. Try it. You'lll catch on quickly.

Lemme know how it works.

[Jeff Fuchs]

I found Scott Christensen's pallette interesting. He uses the three primaries, plus white, plus several grays.

Some of his grays are bought as is. Others he mixes and puts into tubes himself. He has cool, warm, and "ochre" grays. He says that most of the colors you mix will be some variation of gray anyway. It can take a long time to mix them from pure colors, so why not start with grays and bend them with one or more primaries?

He says he can't tell the difference between the paintings he did with a full pallete and his more recent ones with his gray pallette.

He's a landscape painter. Not portrait.

[Linda Ciallelo]

Originally Posted by Richard Budig

Linda:

I strongly urge you to try the following flesh palette for it's simplicity, effectiveness, and ease of set up.

Lay out a string of grays starting with black, and add white in steps until you have seven to nine values.

Lay out WN Alizarin Crimson Perm., starting full strength and lighten with white to match the values of black in the row above.

Lay out your yellow string with straight burnt umber (Old Holland is best), and lighten with yellow ocher until a middle value, which is pure yellow ocher, and then lightend the remainder of the string with white to match the strings above.

With a little practice, you should be able to hit 99% of your flesh color needs with this palette.

FYI: You can get greens from the yO and grays; purples and violets from the alizarin and gray mixes. Obviously greens temper or neutralize red. Violets go nicely around the eyes, and a dull green underpainting serves the lower half of men's faces. Of course, most of the ivory black/white mixes will read as blue when used as is.

Lay out the strings horizontaly, but work vertically . . . that is, if working from the third lightest value, select reds, yellow or grays from the third vertical row. This will keep all of your values the same. Try it. You'lll catch on quickly.

Lemme know how it works.

Do I know you? Where can I see a sample of your work? I thank you for your advice but I'm happy with what I'm doing now. I know how to mix colors. I've been painting in mediums other than oil since 1964.
The colors that I have settled with are also the colors that Zorn settled with. I'm in good company with my choices and my methods.

[Sharon Knettell]

or The Aerobic Palette

I have tried quite a few. This is what I use at present.

Studio Products:
Optical White
Pyrollo Ruby
Vermilion

Micheal Harding:
Naples Yellow Light Genuine
Yellow Ochre
Burnt Sienna
Raw Umber
Ivory Black
Ultramarine
Viridian
Occasionally Cobalt Violet and Cadmium Red Light

Maimeri Puro:
Crimson Lake #174

I found that working from life I mix the colors to go with the tone and lighting conditions present. That means running back and forth with my paint knife matching the color to whatever I want to paint. This makes for a lot of indistinguishable blobs and a great deal of too-ing and fro-ing.

Linda, how does the Doak Vermilion compare to the SP in color. I like the Harding for texture and the Sp for color. The SP is a bit too stiff.

[Linda Ciallelo]

I've never had the opportunity to paint from life. Perhaps some day.

I bought a bunch of SP paints but not the vermilion. Doaks vermilion is quite oily, as are all his paints.Perhaps the oiliness of Doaks vermilion makes it easier to handle since it is such a strong color. I tried the other SP colors but have become accustomed to the texture of the Williamsburg. I also have tried Old Holland, Holbein, Daniel Smith, W&N, and Ozog, as well as several others. I keep coming back to Williamsburg. I don't however have Williamsburg's vermilion. I would like to try Michael Harding and Vasari at some point.
I am presently in love with the Williamsburg flake white. I've had it for several years but am just now figuring out how to use it. Good brushes help immensely. I am using the Escoda synthetic Mongoose called Tadami filberts. Series 4060. I love them.
I have traded in my wax medium for the flake white. It's use being quite similar. This is the kind of color that I'm into now. Here is yesterday's dabbling.

[Sharon Knettell]

You have your own kind of color sense that adds to your style.

I had to get away from photos as my paintings came out sorta grey and dim.

I love the wax medium for large backgrounds I want to keep matte without the color sinking in.

Actually the Williamsburg Vermilion is the same color as the SP, but it handles like the Harding.

Is the Williamsburg Flake White stiff? I have been finding the Harding Flake rather too hard.

I like the SP Optical White because it does not lower the chroma, especially is I need to lighten a red, but my palette is not as quiet as your is. The beauty of the Optical White is that when you use it, the colors do not sink in as they do with Flake White./ I haven't had to use retouch varnish at all.

Linda, what is the texture behind your painting. It is a panel you made yourself?

[Linda Ciallelo]

PS. I was using the Pyrelene crimson quite a bit in this. So my colors are very similiar to yours Sharon. One good thing about using these particular colors is that one can find them in almost any brand in case they are discontinued.
I guess it narrows down to a bright warm red, a cool crimson, a red brown, a yellow brown, yellow ochre, naples yellow, ivory black, viridian, and possibly a warm blue and ultramarine. I have always been intending to get some cobalt violet. I've never tried that. I know Richard Schmid uses that a lot. If I were to teach a class these are the colors I would choose. However most of the painting can be done in red, yellow , black and white. If I were doing landscape or sunlit still life I would add some cadmium yellows .