Palettes and harmony
A palette is both the set of paints you use and the surface you mix on. Fewer, well-chosen paints usually produce more harmonious paintings than a box of thirty colours.
Step by step
- Start with a split-primary palette: a warm and cool of each primary — cadmium yellow light and yellow ochre or cadmium yellow medium; cadmium red and alizarin or quinacridone crimson; ultramarine and phthalo blue or cerulean — plus titanium white and a burnt umber or burnt sienna.
- Try a limited palette such as the 'Zorn palette' associated with Anders Zorn: yellow ochre, cadmium red (or vermilion), ivory black and white. Ivory black acts as a cool blue in mixtures.
- Lay out paint in the same order every time — for example light to dark, or warm to cool — so your hand learns where everything is.
- Choose a colour harmony for each painting: analogous, complementary, split-complementary or triadic.
- Pick a dominant temperature and let small accents of the opposite temperature provide contrast.
- Keep a clean mixing area and wipe your brush between mixes.
Common mistakes
- Buying many convenience colours instead of learning to mix.
- Changing the palette layout every session.
- Mixing every colour from every other colour until all mixes go muddy.
Practice exercise
Paint the same small landscape three times: with a full split-primary palette, a Zorn palette, and only two colours plus white.