Limited Palette

[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 .

[Linda Ciallelo]

Originally Posted by 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?

Sharon, The Williamsburg flake white is not stiff at all. It's very stringy. I slap it on and use a lot of it. I am leaving lots of texture. It's use with colors is almost transparent and it dries shiney and quickly(over night).
It's 40$ for the large tube at Dick Blick so it's not cheap.

Yes I have become accustomed to making my own panels. I find others expensive and disappointing. It takes me a few days to make up a bunch of panels. The texture you see is lead white primer thinned down with OMS, or turps, and applied with a small house painting brush. I make no attempt to smooth the strokes. I like the strokes. There are two layers of primer showing. You are also seeing texture from the flake white that I applied in my first layer of color.

The thing that I am mostly thinking about now is the Rembrandt and Freud method of making lots of texture with the lead /flake or cremnitz white and then rubbing thin layers of color into the heavy texture making broken color. It's working well and I'm loving it. :-)

[Sharon Knettell]

Linda,

I find I am using less and less earth tones. I am always wanting to add a bit of blue, a tad of yellow, a smutch of red, well you know the drill: so I found the earth tones sitting on my palette unused, except for yellow ochre, raw umber and burnt sienna.

[Linda Ciallelo]

yes, I seem to be wanting to build a structure of perhaps lead white , black, red(not sure which red yet, maybe burnt sienna), and yellow ochre, maybe some umbers, and then scrub the color into the texture. I don't know yet. More experiments yet to do. It's not totally a monochrome grisaille but a toned down version of what the painting will be after I scrub in the little bits of oily color where it needs it, after the structure is in place and no major changes are needed.
I should try the cremnitz white,burnt sienna, yellow ochre, ivory black thing for awhile and see what turns up.

[Linda Ciallelo]

I ordered 11 tubes of Michael Harding paint from the Italian Art store on Monday. Tuesday morning it was delivered to my door. It is really different from Williamsburg. It's much softer and more translucent. It completely changes the way I am painting.

There is a huge difference between Old Holland Cremnitz white, Williamsburg Flake white, and Michael Harding cremnitz white. Williamsburgs is thick and sticky. OH is thick and slippery(waxy feeling). Michael Hardings is literally like warm butter. I bought the cremnitz ground in walnut oil. I am going to try the cremnitz ground in linseed oil and see if there is a difference. The use of whites seems key to the rest of the painting. The texture of your white greatly effects everything else, The white works like a medium for the rest of the paint.

Michael Hardings paint is most similiar to Doaks I think, in texture. It's very good stuff. I will stay with it.

I am using their red umber, venetian red, and alizarin crimson, raw umber, raw sienna, yellow ochre, naples yellow genuine, ivory black and burnt sienna. The burnt sienna is very near the red umber in color. The raw sienna is the same as Williamsburgs Italian green ochre . The red umber is similiar to Williamsburgs Terra rosa. The venetian red is similiar to Williamsburgs pompeii red. The texture is much softer though and very slippery. It's very very nice.

PS. There is no "texture" here with the Michael Harding paint. Instead you have thin veils of translucent color with soft edges. Oh no, yet another option. Actually I love this and will probably discard the heavy texture idea. Maybe I will start with the Williamsburg and then switch to Michael Harding for the top layers. Hmmmm

[Sharon Knettell]

Originally Posted by Linda Ciallelo

I ordered 11 tubes of Michael Harding paint from the Italian Art store on Monday. Tuesday morning it was delivered to my door. It is really different from Williamsburg. It's much softer and more translucent. It completely changes the way I am painting.

Do you have enough money left for FOOD?

I love the stuff! It is gorgeous paint.

Is the Cremnitz really opaque. I love the SP Optical white but it does not cover like a lead white. I like it because it makes beautiful bright pastels.

That Naples yellow is gorgeous. I like their Burnt Sienna as well. SP's is a bit dull.

I never liked OH. Kinda sludgy.

Have fun!

[Linda Ciallelo]

Of course I have money left for food ,I drive a bus 40 hours a week . They pay me well for that.

The Michael Harding cremnitz white (ground in walnut oil) is not opaque at all. Actually , next payday, I am going to try the cremnitz ground in linseed oil and I want something whiter like maybe their titanium/ zinc or if they have a flake/ titanium. I got small tube of flake and zinc. I know I didn't order that. They must have made an error. They also sent me Venetian red when I ordered Indian red. But I am actually liking the venetian when mixed with alizarin crimson.

The cremnitz ground in walnut oil is quite translucent. It's absolutely wonderful . You just have to try it. I don't know if it's because of the walnut oil or what. That's why I will try their regular cremnitz ground in linseed. It certainly won't go to waste. Drying time for the walnut oil might be longer.

So far I can't see any difference between their burnt sienna and their red umber . The only difference is that the red umber dried faster on my pallet. I will need to do some tests and see how close they are in color.

I actually have been using tthe Williamsburg to fill in large areas and then the M. Harding for the details tonight. The Williamsburg has more substance but the Harding can get details and blending that would be impossible with the Williamsburg. The Harding has a nice shine . The Williamsburg dries dull, good for an underpainting. The Michael Harding costs less.