I've decided to do a new post about my current palette, as looking back on my
last post
about my palette, I've realized how much my palette has changed since
then. It was fun to read my 2008 post, I had sch a cute, informal way of
writing back then that I feel like I would never allow myself to post
now. A lot of what I wrote still stands, my full palette is basically a
combination of the artists I have studied with, and has transformed over
the years. At this point it's a combination of
Jeremy Lipking,
Juan Martinez and
Yuqi Wang, with a little Kristy Gordon mixed in there as
well. I've taken a lot of the earth reds and browns off my palette now,
which forces me to mix from brighter pigments and create richer
colors.
I mix certain colors out to a "string" to
create a tonal range to work from. To do this I use a palette knife and
pull the color down to some white, mix it in and back up, creating a
darkest, middle and light tone for certain colors. I am careful to leave
the color at the back pure, with no white mixed in. Also, I don't do
this with the transparent colours anymore, such as transparent red
oxide, viridian and ultramarine, as mixing white in with these colors
would make them more opaque. Therefore, I keep white far away from them
since I want to keep them as transparent as possible. I also prefer
certain brands for the transparent colors, both Richeson and Windsor
Newton have the most transparent versions I have found of transparent
red oxide, burnt sienna, viridian and ultramarine blue. I like to have
transparency in my shadows, so by avoiding mixing white in and using
transparent brands for the transparent colors, I am able to get the
shadows to set back into transparent paint.
Another
amazing thing I have discovered is something I learned from Alexandra
Tyng, where cadmiums, which are usually somewhat opaque, when mixed
together with a transparent compliment, become quite transparent. So
when I teach workshops with a full palette, I have the participants mix
these two separate shadow color mixtures: cadmium red light with
viridian green, and cadmium orange with ultramarine blue. These provide
the lovely rich shadow colors that I prefer over using the browns and
earth reds that I would reach for if I still had them on my palette.
I
have also developed a series of pre-mixed colors that I always have on
my palette. I even find the "flesh color" useful when I'm painting
plein air landscapes! The "flesh color" is a base color that I tint to
make it cooler or warmer as needed to match the color of the models
skin. The "blue mixture" is one that I learned from Jeremy Lipking.
It's a compliment to the flesh color (blue compliments orange) so when I
want to make the flesh cooler, but not darken it as adding ultramarine
blue to it would, this works well. It's already lightened to the tone
of the flesh color. I started mixing the neutral grey mixture as well.
I'm not sure when it started, it just happened very naturally, and it's
a very useful color for me to have handy.
I hope that helps! Feel free to post comments and questions below!
