painting pallets

[geoffd]

question. i use WAY too many colors when painting, is there any way to simplify my pallet so i can use a basic set of colors then mix from there? i'm talking like using 5 or so different colors. any tips hints, threads or such i should be looking for. like what did the old (and new) masters use on their's? thanks!!

[DragonGX]

raw sienna, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, white and black

[Elwell]

Originally posted by DragonGX
raw sienna, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, white and black

Well, strictly speaking, if you've got burnt sienna, ochre, and black, you don't really need the raw sienna. That's one less tube right there :D. Switch out the burnt sienna for a brighter, less orange earth red or a cadmium and you have a palette that's surprisingly flexible, esp. for portrait and figure work.

Capt. Harlock, what colors are you using now, and why do you feel it's too many? Is it that you are using too many colors in your paintings, and that a more limited palette would force some harmony on them? Or are you having problems with color mixing and feel you need a more systematic and limited approach to really understand what you are doing? (Or both/neither?)

[geoffd]

i've been using like (forgive me, i don't know the names off hand i just started this) pthalo blue, cadmium red, yellow, black, green, brown, purple, etc. it's just that instead of mixing i just go right for the color i want, then the paintings come out all wrong, nothing reads right. i'll have to try dragon's suggestion and see how that works.
and elwell i'm looking for harmony, i need to be forced to work limited to think it out and well basically you hit the nail on the head and i have both problems your speaking of.
thanks for the input guys

[DragonGX]

yeah sorry, I meant to include a cad red..

if you want a blue, Id go with Ultramarine...

the other blues are extremely strong and ultramarine has a more natural hue to it, expect for skies.. I like pthalo blue for skies, but you can do them with ultramarine..

[DragonGX]

If I were you I would get a good set of colors. Use the ones I told you and add from there what you want. It all depends on your style.. I wouldnt get a purple, because you can easily mix purple. Greens are iffy.. you dont really need a green, but sap and pthalo green (viridan) are good colors if you want one..

Its hard to tell you what colors to use because I haev no idea what you are going for..

[geoffd]

mostly portraits and such. i've been really into nc wyeth recently, frazetta and jeffrey jones. i think the information you have given me will be a great way to start, i need to work on my painting since most of my time is peant on pencils and pen work. time to hit the art store!! hahahaha
any recommendations on which brand to get (acrylic and oils, maybe gouche) thanks! take care

[DragonGX]

Originally posted by Capt.Harlock
mostly portraits and such. i've been really into nc wyeth recently, frazetta and jeffrey jones. i think the information you have given me will be a great way to start, i need to work on my painting since most of my time is peant on pencils and pen work. time to hit the art store!! hahahaha
any recommendations on which brand to get (acrylic and oils, maybe gouche) thanks! take care

For flesh tones, yellow ochre, raw sienna and cad red will get you some very good tones.

I personally prefer oils. I dont really like acrylics, as they dry extremely fast and i like to be able to change things as im painting.. The thing I dont like about oils is that you need thinner to clean up and thin your paints, so you get fumes, and oils are alot harder to clean up than acrylics if you accidentally get some on something.. Ive never tried gouache, so I cant give you any advice on that..

I really want to try some of those water soluable oil paints.. If they act just like regular oils, Im going to start using them instead.. It would be the best of both worlds :)

I like Winsor and Newton paints, theyre good quality paints, and not over expensive.. If you want to go for regular oils go to www.dickblick.com and you can get huge (200 ml) tubes of student grade paint for $5 each.. other paints are $5 for 37ml..

[emesen]

though my pallet has grow substantially you can really get away with painting with 4 tubes... white, a red, a blue, and a yellow. For portraits, I would suggest Alizirin Crimson, Yellow Ochre and Ultramarine and white... the colors can be darkened correctly with "neutral" or a complimentary gray (equal parts of red, blue and yellow mixed to make a gray... tricky but it is far better than using black.) Cad red medium is a good, yet expensive red that makes good skin tones if you don't like the alizirin. I also use a venitian red for skin tones as well... pick one of each that you like and use those... then you can add to your tube collection as you get better and more comfortable with color.

[el coro]

there's no such thing as too many colors, in my opinion. it all depends on the subject matter/mood you're shooting for. i use anywhere from 10-26 colors on my pallette. maybe i'm crazy, but i like to have a broad selection when i paint. i enjoy color mixing, and i've found it helps to have a few different positions of the primaries in particular, in addition to a few browns as well. for instance, for reds, i use cadmium red scarlet, magenta, indian red or persian red, alizarin crimson, and sometimes a pink. now, alot of teachers will not agree with this, but you learn the rules so you can break them. students are warned about using blacks in painting. i avoided black on my pallette for years, but i now use mars black, the strongest darkest muddiest black, and i love it. a pallette is what you make it. i tend toward excess, but it should contain however many colors YOU want it to. that's my 2 cents.-c36

[geoffd]

i guess there is no such thing as too many colors, it's just a matter of how you use those colors to compliment eeach other. i get excited and just start throwing color down where i think it should go and it ends up looking nuts. talk about frutration... for now i will stick to a basic set of colors. i just got through reading that post foster did a while back on painting in oil and saw that he starts out with a limited pallet, then slowly builds up and adds color as needed. i think my problem is mostly harmony and just getting the values to look right. i try to emulate a picture that i see that i know has a lot of color in it and for the life of me cannot figure out how they get it to look so right. a good lesson in color theory is what's needed here i do believe. thanks for the advice everyone and maybe one day i will be as brave as you mr. elcoro.
take care

[Andrew]

Anders Zorn used Vermillion, Golden or Yellow Ochre, Ivory Black, and Lead White. It was amazing what he did with such a palette.

My palette is Cad Red Med, Naphthol Crimson or Alizarin Crimson, Cad. Yellow Med, Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, Hookers Green, Burnt Umber, Dioxazine Purple and Titanium White. I don't use all the colors all the time, but those are the ones I choose from. If I am working on portraiture or where figures are predominent, I may replace Cad. Red with Venetian Red, and Hookers Green with Chromium Oxide Green.

If you are using oils, try cleaning your brushes in vegetable oil (the el cheapo stuff from the grocery store). It will make an emulsion that can be cleaned with soap and water and/or thinned with turps. Then all you really need is turpentine for thinning the paints and mediums. Keeps the odours and exposure down.

I like Utrecht (http://www.utrecht.com ). I get the most bang for my buck. Both their oils and acrylics are very heavy bodied and have a very high pigment load. They manufacture their own product which keeps the costs down. If you like some of the other brands try Jerry's Artarama (http://jerrysartarama.com ) They have good prices to start, and terrific sales.

Andrew

[Rohan]

there's plenty of ideas on this thread here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7752&highlight=wilcox)
To save money and get the widest spectrum of relatively pure pigments I've used a minimum of 8 colours: cadmium yellow,lemon yellow,
cadmium red, alizarin crimson, cerulean blue, and ultramarine, plus a white and a black,

this has been complemented with burnt umber, burnt sienna , viridian, cobalt blue etc but with those first eight you can mix a really wide range of colours.
try to get the most expensive pigments possible, since the benefits of using a 'primary bias' pallette are reduced with cheaper pigments

I also use a zinc white which has a warm bias and more transparent in combination with cooler Titanium white, and Ivory Black which is warmer than my lamp black, which covers better and is cooler in bias.
hope this is helpful

[DragonGX]

If you want to learn how to really mix paint, i recommend the book "Blue and Yellow dont make Green"

it has some interesting stuff on paint colors.

[pHargrave]

(raw sienna, burnt sienna, cadmium red, yellow ochre, white and black)

Let me say when i first saw a demo of this limited pallette, my jaw dropped in amazement.

I'm wondering if there is similar pallette for other color schemes, say an overall cool blue? Or is there a way to work the above colors to get something that is overall cool?

[dns2k]

i have heard from my instructor that using thinner to thin your paints will burn the paints and the painting will eventually lose its color. try using linseed oil instead, which is in the paints already to do just that. out of the tube.
so pick up that to thin em.

-dns

[Elwell]

Originally posted by dns2k
i have heard from my instructor that using thinner to thin your paints will burn the paints and the painting will eventually lose its color. try using linseed oil instead, which is in the paints already to do just that. out of the tube.
so pick up that to thin em.

Either your instructor is giving you incomplete information or, more likely, you've misunderstanding what's been said. Overthinning with turps or MS can leave the pigment underbound, which can lead to the color eventually dusting off. This has happened to many of Mark Rothko's works, for instance. Hovever, that was in cases where the paint was used almost as a wash or a stain, and left unvarnished. Using just thinner for the early stages in a multi-layer painting is standard proceedure, and conforms with the fat-over-lean principle.

Using only thinner can also lead to the color "sinking in", i.e. drying matte. It's not the only cause of this, however. Some colors, particularly umbers, are especialy prone. The remedy for this, whatever the cause, is either a thin coat of retouch varnish or "oiling out" by gently rubbing some oil or medium onto the effected area.

Overthinning your paint with staight oil can cause just as many problems. If you are working in layers the added drying time can be impractical, and you can get adhesion problems if the underlayers are too oily. Thin oily layers on top of other thin oily layers will actually bead up. Excess oil will also lead to yellowing in thin layers and wrinkling in thicker ones.

To balance everything out, the standard basic art school medium is a 50/50 thinner/linseed oil mix. If you're working in layers increase the ratio of thinner in the lower ones and oil in the upper. There are, of course, hundreds of more complicated mediums, but the 50/50 is a good place to start. The most important thing to remeber is, whatever you are using to modify your paint, use as little as possible. Paintings look and hold up best when they are mostly paint, not other stuff.

[tinyhands]

A good way to go is a warm and cool of the primaries and a green. And obviously white and black. If you want a really good color theory tutorial check out fred flickstones on this site.He's my teacher and he knows color really really well. Like someone mentioned earlier, the zorn palette is a great starter palette. Also, using turp does burn the color eventually as i was recently informed from my teacher, who was informed from a well respected and renowned painter. I use safflower oil, and it works great. If you do use alot it will bead up, but that just means your using too much. And if you have too many colors on your palette then it will be harder to acheive a color harmony. Also, if you didn't know, squint to see value, open your eyes to see color. That might help you with your values. Also, if your trying to paint a colorful picture, hopefully no earthtones are on your palette. You cant make a colorfull picture with earthtones. Anyway, i could go on and on with the little knowledge i have, but hopefully this might help.