Home › Forums › Explore Media › Watercolor › The Learning Zone › 8 Color Palette
- This topic has 23 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 6 months ago by Jo Castillo, Bastrop, Texas, USA.
-
AuthorPosts
-
April 5, 2013 at 4:27 pm #990798
There seem to be a few threads floating around where we discuss our ideal limited palettes. I decided to add one more:
For 8 colors, what would you pick? I have a mini tin which I filled with my own paints that goes everywhere with me, and here it is:
The colors are:
Azo Yellow (M Graham)
Quinacridone Gold (Daniel Smith)
Permanent Rose (M Graham)
Perylene Maroon (M graham)
Pthalo Blue Green Shade (Daniel Smith)
French Ultramarine (Daniel Smith)
Perylene Green (Daniel Smith)
Raw Umber (M Graham)So what are yours?
April 5, 2013 at 6:28 pm #1185519I regularly use eight colors:
W&N Quin Magenta
Rembrandt Perm. Madder Lake
W&N Bismuth Yellow (opaque; really opaque)
W&N New Gamboge (will swith to DS when my tube runs out)
Holbein Peacock Blue
W&N French Ultramarine
DS Quin Gold Deep (Love this!)
W&N Neutral Tint (rarely)-DragonLady
Which would be the bigger waste:
your art supplies, or your creative soul?April 5, 2013 at 9:28 pm #1185515Julie, I adore your illustrations. This palette that you carry everywhere is adorable! I like most of your colour choices… perylene green was a bit of a surprise.
D’Lady, you certainly can mix a beautiful range with your 8 colour choices!
Char --
CharMing Art -- "Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." Leonardo DaVinci
April 5, 2013 at 10:44 pm #1185520Julie, I adore your illustrations. This palette that you carry everywhere is adorable! I like most of your colour choices… perylene green was a bit of a surprise.
D’Lady, you certainly can mix a beautiful range with your 8 colour choices!
In real life my name is Julie, and I’m tired, so my first reading of your post was confusing.
I only had to buy about 250 tubes of paint before I finally found the ones I love that love each other. Now…those eight are certainly not the only ones I use, but they are the only ones I consistently use, and am more than happy to tackle just about any subject with. They work for me. :thumbsup:
-DragonLady
Which would be the bigger waste:
your art supplies, or your creative soul?April 6, 2013 at 1:13 am #1185525I dunno about this whole mania for restricted palettes. Further, since my six color palette was cheated out to seven, I really only need to add one to that.
PY154 Neutral Yellow
PR188 Warm Red
PR122 Magenta (or maybe PV19 Quin Rose)
PB29 Ultramarine Blue
PB15 Phthalo Blue GS
PG7 Phthalo Green BS
PR101 Transparent Red Iron Oxide
P049 Quin GoldThere – I swapped out the Burnt Sienna for the Trans. Red Iron Oxide because the Quin Gold was kinda orange anyway, so a little greater degree of separation. Now, admittedly, I’d only be limited to eight because my house burned down or my backpack stolen and I was rebuilding back my collection of watercolors or perhaps recommending to someone else starting out what I think might be a reasonably balanced set of eight colors to start with. Maybe a gold ochre or yellow ochre instead of the quin gold, but then I’d shift to Burnt Sienna over trans. red oxide. Honestly, there are multiple paths to essentially the same range.
April 6, 2013 at 1:52 am #1185521I dunno about this whole mania for restricted palettes.
I narrowed mine down for a few reasons:
1) Reduced financial circumstances meant I couldn’t be constantly buying new things, so I had to use -and be happy- with what I had.
2) I can replace all eight tubes for about $120.00, and they will last me a long time. Of course, I only usually need to replace one or two at a time, so that helps avoid turning my hobby into a serious budget liability.
3) Consistent results from one painting to the next. I don’t get to paint very often anymore, so constantly changing what’s on my palette means learning something new everytime, and sometimes I end up with failures that only happened because I couldn’t well control some new pigment.
4) I just happen to like and use these. I have many more and do continue to experiement; I’ll happily change any or all of them if I find substitutes I like better.
5) Why use more if less will do? As I said before, I’ll tackle *almost* any subject with these, so I don’t feel like my art would be much improved if I just had some different tube of paint or some nifty tool. I went through that already, and finally am happy with what I have.
-DragonLady
Which would be the bigger waste:
your art supplies, or your creative soul?April 6, 2013 at 2:04 am #1185530Dragonlady:
Wow, what a fantastic range of colors! I find your palette especially interesting because it has some colors I don’t see mentioned too often.CharM:
Thank you so much for the kind words about my work! I have to confess the cuteness of the palette was the main reason I bought it, but it’s proved useful far more than I expected. As for perylene green, it’s a color I can’t go without, and it’s quite convenient to have handy.Hoplite:
I think some of the obsession with limited palettes is that sometimes we’re limited to that many by our tools. Discussions on 12 color palettes, for example, may stem from someone buying a 12 pan travel box. Limited palettes also just make for an interesting exercise, as they can yield surprising results. As Dragonlady’s post shows, a few paints can yield most or all the colors we need. There are certain colors I would never bother to try mixing if I didn’t have a limited palette. Another reason for a limited palette could be financial or being a beginner and unable to buy many tubes of paint at once. By the way, I think your palette choices are quite good, and would give a nice range.April 6, 2013 at 4:20 am #1185526It was a rhetorical question.
April 6, 2013 at 4:45 am #1185516[IMG]http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/05-Apr-2013/72261-eight_colors_cropped.jpg[/IMG]
I regularly use eight colors:
W&N Quin Magenta
Rembrandt Perm. Madder Lake
W&N Bismuth Yellow (opaque; really opaque)
W&N New Gamboge (will swith to DS when my tube runs out)
Holbein Peacock Blue
W&N French Ultramarine
DS Quin Gold Deep (Love this!)
W&N Neutral Tint (rarely)your palette looks very carefully selected one. and if also like idea small palette. actually i have some colours what not get again and some of them again only if my money income drops much and/or prices rice much. So smaller palette what i currently have is possible.
April 6, 2013 at 4:46 am #11855172) I can replace all eight tubes for about $120.00, and they will last me a long time. Of course, I only usually need to replace one or two at a time, so that helps avoid turning my hobby into a serious budget liability.
+1. i mean sounds reason what i thinked. if i must upgrade whole palette same time price cannot be big. and i still must mix at least two brands.(i need w&n ultramarine blue and some colours form Schmincke).
April 6, 2013 at 7:32 am #1185511With this little toybox you have to have in mind that the mixing area is very limited, so you have to adapt to what you paint.
After some trial and error I have come up with these colours.
Transparent yellow(PY150)
Permanent red medium(Rembrandt)
Mix of Perylene marron and Permanent rose
French ultramarine
Mix of htalo green and Winsor orange
Yellow ochre
Burnt siena
Ivory blackIn the middle I have added Sepia and burnt umber.
The black I got because the symphony orchestra insist on dressing in black and it’s not practical to mix my own black, the Sepia is for monochromes and I added the Burnt umber so I could make the conductors hair dark brown without cleaning the brush from black.April 6, 2013 at 2:57 pm #1185522Very nice, Ingegerd!
Where do you all get those little boxes? They look pretty nifty.
-DragonLady
Which would be the bigger waste:
your art supplies, or your creative soul?April 6, 2013 at 8:19 pm #1185527My ‘take me everywhere’ palette is all Daniel smith. There are only 7 though – I couldn’t make an 8th division in this tiny palette.
Hansa Yellow medium
Quinacridone Red
Ultramarine
Burnt Sienna (or Transparent Red Oxide)
Dark grey ‘bistre’ made with ultramarine and burnt sienna
Buff Titanium
Goethite (granulating yellow earth)If I had space for an 8th colour it would probably be a convenient undersea green…or phthalo green for mixing even though I don’t like it…
Cheers, JaneApril 6, 2013 at 8:36 pm #1185531Very nice, Ingegerd! It’s nice to see someone else with that palette!
Dragonlady, I got the box here:
http://www.danielsmith.com/Item–i-027-120-001Jane, that’s a nifty little palette!
April 6, 2013 at 9:07 pm #1185528Jane, that’s a nifty little palette!
It was an empty Burt’s Bees lip balm tin on a key ring. Fiddly little job to make though…Nothing like a challenge!
Cheers, Jane -
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Register For This Site
A password will be e-mailed to you.
Search