Mixtures are usually lower in chroma than paint straight from the tube. So with just a few paints on your palette, there will be colors you cannot approach, because when you try to mix the right hue you lose too much chroma. One way to deal with that is to simply have a very large number of paints on your palette. That way, whenever you need to represent a high-chroma color, you are likely to have one that is close. You can then get the right color with a minimum of mixing.
My teacher, Dennis Cheaney, uses this approach. It is based on the method advocated by Ted Seth Jacobs, his teacher. Here’s what Ted says about this in “Light for the Artist,” the book I’ve quoted from in a number of posts.
Some painters prefer to work with the fewest possible colors (called a “limited palette”). The disadvantage to this method is that mixed colors are not quite as chromatically intense as their counterparts out of the tube. For example, an orange made of red and yellow loses some chromatic intensity as compared to tube orange. The limited palette reduces our available chromatic range.
Another one of Ted’s students, Tony Ryder, was profiled in a recent article in American Artist. His palette for one painting has 47 paints on it:
flake white, misty blue, zinc white, titanium white, Naples yellow green, jaune brilliant, Naples yellow light, Naples yellow, Naples yellow red, cadmium yellow lemon, cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, coral red, brilliant pink, cadmium red, cadmium red scarlet, alizarin crimson, rose grey, cobalt violet, cobalt violet light, Winsor violet, ultramarine violet, cobalt blue, king’s blue, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, cobalt green light, viridian, green grey, chrome oxide green, cinnabar green, Bohemian green earth, sap green, yellow ochre light, yellow grey, raw sienna, Old Holland ochre, deep ochre, raw umber greenish, mars yellow, mars orange, burnt sienna, mars violet, burnt umber, Van Dyke brown, Payne’s gray, ivory black.
That’s a lot of different paints.
I don’t claim to know more about painting than Ted Seth Jacobs, Tony Ryder, or Dennis Cheaney. But at my limited level of skill I do see a couple of problems with this approach. One is simply that it is much harder to learn the mixing characteristics of 47 paints as well as you can with, say, 6 paints. When mixed, pigments react in unpredictable ways. If you use a more “limited” palette, you can learn with great specificity the ways that each color mixes with every other color. If you don’t really know your colors, then you’ll often be surprised at the results of any given mixture. What you end up doing is having to fiddle with mixtures. You mix two paints, observe how the color shifts, then add another paint to compensate for the color mixing shift that you didn’t predict, then maybe have to do that once or twice more before the color is exactly right. As that happens, the chroma inevitably goes down. So you might have to then try to add some more of a brighter paint to pull the chroma back up. With this approach, you can spend a lot of time chasing color.
In his book, Ted also points out how mixing colors reduces chroma, but fails to account for that when he is selecting paints containing multiple pigments. In describing the value of a kitchen sink palette, he shows five different greens: gray green, sevres green, cobalt green light, cadmium green light, and olive green. The book was written awhile ago and he doesn’t say what brands he is using, but I think that at least two of those are multi-pigment paints. There is no such pigment as “cadmium green,” for example—it’s usually a blend of cadmium yellow and pthalo blue. Similarly, a number of the paints on Tony’s palette also contain multiple pigments. If the rationale for the large number of paints is to avoid chroma reduction from mixing, then I don’t see how it makes sense to choose paints that the manufacturers have already mixed for you. Paint companies don’t have any special way of mixing paint without the saturation costs that we have to cope with when we do the same thing on our palettes.
That is not to say that any of these guys don’t know how to mix paint. I’ve watched Dennis do it, and it’s impressive. In a few seconds, he’ll pull several colors together to produce a mixture with just the right value, hue, and chroma. But when I put that many colors onto my palette I get all mixed up. I lose track of which colors I’m using for what purpose. When mixing, I find myself either (a) using too many different paints in each mixture, chasing color all over the place, and tossing some mixtures and starting over; or (b) ignoring most of the paints on my palette and using only a few.
Nevertheless, some artists can manage a large palette of paints without apparent difficulty. Ted, Tony, and Dennis do it brilliantly. But it is not an approach that works for me.
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Tags: art books, chroma, color, colors, paint mixing, painting, paints, palette, Ted Seth Jacobs
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16 December 2006 at 10:54 AM
painterdog
Wow, 47 colors.
I think that’s over kill.
I am more into a value system, its about pitch not chroma.
I have a palette of white,lead,or titanium or both, cad yellow lt, cad yellow med, yellow ochre, raw sienna, vermillion(or cad red),burnt sienna, cobolt blue, ultramarine blue, madder lake, Ivory black.
I might also have some earth greens, and if I have the time I will mix a row of grays that are the same values as the colors on my palette.
If I am painting landscape I will have a row of blues, violets, and greens all mixed up like the grays.
So if I know that the middle pitch of the painting is orange value than I know that Ihave to mix up and down to go to the lights and to the shadow values.
cadmium red scarlet, alizarin crimson, rose grey, cobalt violet, cobalt violet light, Winsor violet, ultramarine violet, king’s blue. paynes gray???
Why would you buy a tube of gray/blue paint?
All those color can be mixed, and not to take away from Ted Seth Jacobs and his students, but this kitchen sink idea is a bit wacky.
By the way they do sight messure as a method, that is they do this nice tight drawing and fill in the painting. Its drawing and fill.
I studied with Frank Mason who is also a classical painter(http://www.frankmason.org)
He does not do that and while I respect Jacobs, and Ryder, they can draw, there paintings are based on the 19 century French academy.
Frank was a lot more into the old masters and drawing was more about action and proportions and fluidity.
He was big on learning to draw with a brush.
He was aslo into the light effect.
The values of what is before you as it relates to the real object.
Not the same as do a tight drawing, and fill it in.
16 December 2006 at 3:19 PM
David
Painterdog,
I think your approach is very reasonable. While I think there is a lot to learn from Jacobs and his students, I agree with you that the paint mixing scheme just isn’t that well thought out.
To his credit, when I took classes with Dennis Cheaney, he did not try to insist that I use that kind of massive palette. He’s very flexible as a teacher. I’m also grateful that, although the teaching method derives in part from the French academic tradition, there wasn’t any obligatory cast drawing.
16 December 2006 at 11:32 PM
painterdog
I think the drawing part of what the people who come out of the Florence Academy is amazing. Some of these people draw so well.
Jacob Collins , who I think is an amzaing artist, is the cream of this movement.
My main problem with this is that they are producing so many people who paint and draw the same way. The real talented ones show through, but I keep seeing these labor intensive academic drawings of casts that look good but for the most part they are dead in a visual sense. It’s an interesting balance, but I have to admire the tenacity of training like that.
Frank Mason was asked years ago to join the faculty at the Graduate School of Figurative Art, he turned them down because he does not beleive in the methodology of the French Academic tradition, which is what they base the program on.
He ought to know as he studied with someone who came out of that, Frank Vincent Dumond, who if your interested in color theory should look up as he was out of the Bellows(Maratta) school of color theory.
I read that discription again of Tony Ryder’s palette and I feel that sums it up, they think to much. You don’t need misty blue to paint a painting.
I don’t even know about colors with names such as misty blue or coral red, I don’t know about you but I don’t trust any color that start with a noun. Well I guess sap green is an exception and Bohemian green earth which I have used and is very nice.
but the more I read his palette and I go an look up say Monet’s palette and I see that there is a bit of the ‘kid in the sweet shop’ thing going on here.
17 December 2006 at 10:37 AM
David
Painterdog,
I absolutely agree on Collins. He’s very, very good. I don’t get the sense of stiltedness with Jacobs and his students that I get with pure atelier trained artists. Jacobs stresses gesture and vitality in life drawing, not endless practice to become a human photocopier.
As far as weird color names go, unfortunately that’s how Holbein names their paints (that’s where “misty blue” and “coral red” come from. They must have hired an interior decorator to come up with names for their paints ). Other manufacturers do the same, of course, but Holbein is the worst offender among the makers of artist-grade paint.
For an artist, a color’s mixing characteristics are far more important than just how pretty it is right from the tube.
18 December 2006 at 8:52 AM
Anna Sellers
I am currently working with a limited palette to learn on. What would be the best way to incorporate more colors? One color at a time and learn how it works with what I have? Move on to a warm/cool combination? Although I am not ready for the kitchen sink approach, I would like to start moving forward.
18 December 2006 at 10:31 AM
David
Anna,
Good question. That’s something I’ll be talking about in more detail later, but here’s a preview.
I use what I call a “core palette” strategy. I have five or six paints (plus white) that I use in most every painting. Those are low chroma, single-pigment paints—mostly earths. Some paintings I do just with that core palette.
I also have a collection of higher-chroma paints. Stuff like vermilion, Prussian blue, Doak’s marvelous Alger blue, cadmium yellow light, and so on. I don’t know these paints like I do those in the core palette, because I don’t use them all the time. When I’m planning a painting, I consider whether I will need one, two, or three paints from the extended list. If so, I spend some time playing with them, trying out mixes to see if they will work in the context of what I am planning. Sometimes (not as often as I should) I will do a small loose poster study to see how the color mixes I’m considering harmonize together and represent the subject.
If you think this strategy might work for you, then my suggestion is to decide on a core palette that allows you to mix virtually all of the low chroma colors you will use. Get really familiar with how these paints mix together, because you’ll rarely apply them unmixed. Then add one or two additional paints at a time, gradually, and use them as you need them for a particular painting.
18 December 2006 at 10:40 AM
painterdog
Hello Anna,
I use the palette I stated above. I think you want a balance of warm colors(reds, yellows),and cool(blues, madder lake, cool red) If you want a more earth based palette you could use the Mars based yellows and reds and earth reds, and find yellows such a chrome yellow(caution its posioness).
I have used both cads mars based colors, I have to say the cads are great for the yellows and reds as they are very intense.
In short I think keeping it simple is the best way.
You could just use red, yellow, and blue, primary colors, and titanium white or a zinc-titanium mixture and ivory black.
If your more inclinded to the impressionist palette than you can omit black, which is what Monet did, he mixed his blacks.
My palette:
white,lead,or titanium/zinc or both, cad yellow lt,cad yellow med, yellow ochre,raw sienna,venitian red, vermillion(or cad red),burnt sienna, cobolt blue, ultramarine blue, madder lake, ivory black.
I might also have some earth greens, and if I have the time I will mix a row of grays(12 steps) that are the same values as the colors on my palette.
If I am painting landscape I will have a row of blues, violets, and greens all mixed up like the grays.