What do you do with three colors & white

[halthepainter]

A goodly number of oil and acrylic painters paint with three colors and white.

I would love to see examples of what other artists do with their three colors and white.

I routinely use 5 colors and white but experimented with a three color palette of burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and cad yellow medium and titanium white. I was going for a dark scene in acrylics and this was the result:



Would you tell us what three color palette you use and show an example of your work.

[Andrew]

Quite a bit actually. My typical palette is a single primary with rarely the addition of a secondary. These examples are just a couple of quickies and are oil on 8x6 inch canvas. The palette for these was Aliz Crimson, Cad. yellow lt, and Ultra blue.

Andrew

[halthepainter]

Earlier I saw an example of a painter from Hawaii using the same three colors as you do. It was what made me want to see the work others were doing with three colors and white.

Nice work.

[Einion]

Thread from December last on the same subject, What 3 "Primary" paints can achieve... with links to some artists' work.

There are a number of older threads on limited palettes for anyone interested in having a look. Links to a few in this post.

Einion

[halthepainter]

Originally Posted by Einion

Thread from December last on the same subject, What 3 "Primary" paints can achieve... with links to some artists' work.

There are a number of older threads on limited palettes for anyone interested in having a look. Links to a few in this post.
Einion

Einion, thank you for the links. I added the post with the limited palette links to my favoirites list so I can refer back to it.

Also in the first link, I added the Mother child post to my favorites also. The result with three watercolors was amazing. I thought that, with watercolor, you had to have more colors.

Thank you.

I still hope we can get our artists who paint with three colors to show us their finished work. There are some who paint with congruent colors and others who use split primaries. It would be great to have a thread where we could compare the finished art of a number of artists who use various three color palettes. Seeing the finished product, I would think, would more instructive than just seeing their color wheels.

[solonite]

3 colors only

[halthepainter]

Delightful solonite. Please tell us your three colors.

Really that is a fun painting. Wonderful.

[budigart]

For limited palette enthusiasts, I recomment a book titled The Big Book of Oil Color by Jose Parramon. It contains a whole section of explanations, with photos, of some of the many color combinations that can be mixed with cad yellow medium, alizarin crimson, Prussian blue and white.

I played with this basic CMY palette off and on for a few years. It taught me that, in a pinch, you can get by with only four tubes of paint. Of course, a palette like this can, and does teach how wide a range of colors/values can be made from the basics.

Parramon's book has been out of print for some time, but I have found it on several used book web sites. The color section of this book is worth the price.

[rltromble]

Interesting, I might have to look for that one.

[knfmkr]

I use a primary three color pallet as mentioned but with a different approach. I use a cool and warm of each color, such as a warm red and a cool red. I lay my pallet out with white in the upper right corner, moving down to the lower right are the blues, lower left the reds and upper left the yellows.

My yellows are cad lemon and cad light.
My reds are Aliz and cad red med.
My blues are ultramarine and Viridian.

When Painting plein air which is mostly what I do theses days I will add Raw Umber to the pallet to make some beautiful darks.

My medium is Copal Painting Medium

[Einion]

Originally Posted by knfmkr

I use a primary three color pallet as mentioned but with a different approach. I use a cool and warm of each color, such as a warm red and a cool red.

Not to point out the obvious but this is a six-colour palette (seven including white)

This is normally called a split-primary or twin-primary palette... assuming it included two blues instead of a blue and a green, as you've listed.

Einion

[knfmkr]

As stated

I use a primary three color pallet as mentioned but with a different approach.

Just my one and only contibution.

[Einion]

This is not a semantics issue: you listed the paints, it's not a three-colour primary palette, end of story.

Work done with seven-colour palettes is a subject for another thread, which anyone is free to open if they would like to.

Einion

[sidbledsoe]

I have used, burnt sienna, ultra blue, yellow ochre, several times here is one, 8x10:

George Cherepov was an artist who sometimes used what he called his minor palette, indian red, yellow ochre, prussian blue, here is one:

I don't like prussian blue or indian red as I find them both too strong for my liking. I have also used just red, yellow, and blue but am more comfortable with lower chroma earths.

[halthepainter]

Originally Posted by sidbledsoe

I have used, burnt sienna, ultra blue, yellow ochre, several times here is one, 8x10:

George Cherepov was an artist who sometimes used what he called his minor palette, indian red, yellow ochre, prussian blue, here is one:

Thank you sidbledsoe. This is exactly the kind of answers I was hoping for.

Your painting is beautiful and I like your palette but Gerorge Cherepov's painting and his "minor palette" really rings my chimes. I definately want to give that palette a try. Of course I love large value changes in a painting, perhaps that is a large part of Cherepov's painting's appeal for me.