A question for Marvin about his palette of limited color

[Molly Sherrick Phifer]

Brenda, you gave me a great laugh! I can relate to your wanting to learn Marvin's methods. Not only are his works breathtaking, the works of his students are so consistently wonderful. See PSoA best of show and people's choice winner and Mattelson student, Joseph Daily here .
I have long admired his students' works and wrestled with myself over whether I could afford the money, or for me more importantly the time away to study with him. I have finally made the commitment. I have enrolled in his weekly classes in New York City, which will run for 10 weeks (I am taking the Saturday classes) starting in September. I'll get six hours per week with Marvin. Yeeha! I understand that folks have traveled hundreds of miles each week to attend. My 135 miles seems pretty easy in comparison. I am really looking forward to this experience, even if I spend 50% of my Saturday time on the road. Yikes

Many thanks to Janel, Patty, Enzie et al for sharing your experiences. It really is inspiring to many.

[Patricia Joyce]

Ditto, Janel!
I did take out a loan to study with Marvin and I consider it the best investment I can make in my future as an artists. Heck, I figured that if I could take out student loans to getmy undergraduate degree, it made more sense to take out a loan for Marvin's workshop!!

I am 50, I only have so many years to paint and I want the greatest learning curve I can attain - I get that with Marvin. Molly I can't wait to hear your reports after you start studying with Marvin in New York - I'm very excited for you.

And Janel, I am going to the art museum tonight for my regular visit, but I am calling the museum today to see about painting there - you inspire me!!!

[Janel Maples]

Go Patty, GO!

Curiosity question for all the readers out there. Is our enthusiasm coming through loud and clear through the type? Hope so. I love this energy!

[Douglas Flynt]

Hi Everyone,


This is my first post here on the Forum, I was reading these threads on a limited palette consisting of three or four strings and thought perhaps I might be able to give a little insight into this type of system.


The system is quite simple and I found it quite useful when I first began painting with color. It basically breaks the color selection process into a three step system pertaining to the three components of color; "Value", "Hue" and "Chroma."


The palette is laid out as follows a red string (a string being globs of various values moving from light to dark or vice versa all of the same hue family, often nine), a yellow string and a blue string. Some artists also perfer to add a neutal gray string. All the strings are laid out left to right according to which string they belong to. Additionally, the values are the same as you move up and down between the various strings.


The way this is then used is the artist first considers the value they need and scans left to right or vice versa to the correct grouping of values.


The artist then decides on the hue choice they want. Hue meaning red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and or some combination such as red-orange. The artist then mixes the appropriate strings together to make the correct hue choice. For instance If the artist wants orange they would mix from the red string and from the yellow string. Because the values they are mixing from are already the same they do not cause an alteration in value as they are mixing the color.


Lastly, the artist must then decide if the hue and value mixture they now have is correct in terms of chromatic intensity. If the color is too chromatically intense they need to either mix up the complement from the hue choices they have at that same value and slowly add it to what they already have or if they have a neutral string slowly add the neutral of the same value until they have sufficiently grayed down their mixture.


Wow, for something relatively simple that came out quite lengthy. Basically this palette allows the artist to address value, hue and chroma one at a time.


Hope that helps someone.

[Rui Manuel]

Very good explanation, Douglas!

Thanks for your time!

Rui.

[Rui Manuel]

Specially mentioning the possibility of including the complement rows.

Rui.

[Brenda Ellis]

Yes, Douglas, thanks for the breakdown. It took me a while of looking at this thread and reading the posts to "get" that.
But now this has become a great tool for me. I don't use exactly Marvin's palette but I still break my palette down into values and it helps me quite a bit, being a beginning painter.

[Alison Schuchs]

I realize this is an old thread but I was interested Pat in how you organize 36 brushes when painting?

This blog explained it very plainly to me after doing a search like suggested and had a diagram of the progression.

Very interesting!

http://underpaintings.blogspot.com/2...n-palette.html

[Richard Budig]

If you interested, here is quite a good breakdown and explanation of Marvin's Palette:

http://underpaintings.blogspot.com/2...n-palette.html

[John Reidy]

I have been using Marvin's Palette for almost 10 years. One aide is a value pattern that you can place under glass that you mix your palette on. The guide helps you nail each value. To obtain the Value pattern you can probably get it from Marvin. I could give you directions on how to do it but I feel it is Marvin's intellectual property and it would be inappropriate for me to do so.

Here is an illustration of the Value pattern but it is only a close proximity to the actual values. This illustration is only to help you visualize the real thing.

I use one that I have expanded to over 20 inches wide.