Color palettes: Basic and Beyond

Limited Color Palette, Option 1: Ultramarine Blue, Permanent Alizarin, Cadmium Yellow Light, Burnt Umber, and Titanium White.

Note: For more on Permanent Alizarin vs Alizarin to go my post on paint labels.

As you can see form the image above, you can quickly create a simple, lovely color palette that maintains an overall harmony with my five recommended colors. This really is ideal for the beginning painter and is a great stepping stone for a beginner's first few paintings. However, pigment is not the only issue. If these are the only paints you are allowed, a lack of opacity in these paints, coupled with the lack of easy variation in color temperature, can lead to frustration. And yet, do I paint with more than 5-7 colors in a painting? Not really. Sometimes I will go crazy and have like ten! It is the option of variation that is important.

Limited Color Palette, Option 2, The Zorn Palette: Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Medium, Ivory Black (used in place of a blue), and Titanium White.

Again, as you can see, with just these four colors plus a little color theory know-how, you can create a varied array of colors. However, one more time, even within this array there are limitations that can leave you lacking.

To read more about Limited Color Palette Option 1 click here or here. To read more about Zorn's color palette click here. I will be writing more about Zorn's palette in my post about flesh tones. 

Semi-Limited Color Palette: These are the colors I wish I was originally told to get, when my professor only allowed a limited palette, but first a little color theory.

Orange is the warmest color on the color wheel, with its compliment, blue, being the coolest. As you move towards one or the other you will get a cooler or warmer color. Hence why you can have both cool and warm yellows or cool and warm greens. My semi-limited palette consists of both cool and warm primaries as well as some additional earth tones. 

Cool Colors:

Hansa Yellow (toward green)

Quinacridone Red (toward blue)

Cerulean blue (toward green)

Warm Colors:

Cadmium Yellow (toward orange)

Napthol red (toward orange)

Phthalo Blue (toward red): careful, it has a high tinting strength!

Note: Cadmium Red is also a great warm red, and has a better lightfastness (more on lightfastness later); however, I personally prefer Napthol.

Note: Ultramarine Blue is the original Egyptian Blue and is less of an intense tinter than Phthalo. I don’t personally love the color; I by far prefer the deeper color of Phthalo.

Additional Colors:

                       

Burnt Sienna – a painter’s first earth tone

Yellow Ochre – a must-have earth tone

Ivory Black – a great mixing black with moderate tinting strength

Titanium-Zinc White – a neutral, great general mixing white

Only five more colors than the Limited Color Palette Option 1, it can however make all the difference in the world. You can see some alternative color combinations to my semi-limited palette here and here.

Semi-Limited color palette expansion pack:

           

Secondary colors: Organized in no special order

Permanent Alizarin – (cool, towards blue) one of my favorite colors. I use it in every painting, and most old masters did as well.

Cadmium Orange – (the warmest) a strong orange, but saves you so much paint. It is very versatile and can easily be tinted or changed.                             

Indian Yellow – (it is orange) Cadmium is opaque, but this orange is transparent and a lovely tinter (not a word, don’t care).             

Permanent Green Light: a good, middle of the road green

Olive Green: an excellent earth tone green. Sap Green and Phthalo Green are also worth checking out.

Dioxide Purple: a dark purple, but very versatile.

Naples Yellow: just a great color.  

Additional Earth Tones:

Van Dyke Brown: a cooler, darker brown that dries super fast.

Raw Sienna: not the prettiest of colors, but can sometimes be a good one.  

From here you start adding colors that you find yourself mixing most often. I know that some people think it is silly to purchase a color that you can just mix, but I say why waste the paint? If you know you are going to use it a lot, just buy it.

To read more about the characteristics of each color I recommend checking out the Gamblin site. Scroll down and select the desired color group. Their site is full of useful and wonderful information. You will see it popping up quite a bit in the coming posts. If you are interested in the history of each pigment I recommend Pigments through the Ages.

                       

For additional colors to add for landscape color palettes click here and here, or for a listing of colors used for a "general old master color palette" click here.             

If you would like to know what paints a specific artist, modern or old master painted with, check out the blog Oil Color Palettes.

Below is a video from the Web Art Academy, here they recommend their own palette as well as some additional information about old masters:

My next post will be about why having a set of warm and coolcolors is so useful. For more about painting check out my main Tips and Techniques page.