The Right Color

"Painting is easy, you just put the right color in the right place." - Nelson Shanks

I have been painting in oil since the mid 90s... and I believe I learned at the feet of one of today's true masters, Wade Schuman. In Wade's studio I learned to use classic palettes. The Dead palette (the basic three-color palette of Rubens and Rembrandt, using only red, yellow, black and white), is a very liberating way to paint figures or portraits: using just these three colors... It helps you clearly see the simplicity and harmony of color relationships. Even with such a limited palette a full range of color can be found, and you can concentrate on painting itself, without the need to juggle your attention on so many elements of your painting. I still use this palette sometimes - usually for portraits.

Another "old masters" palette I learned from Wade was the Neapolitan palette, which is done on a dark ground. I have only used this twice - once being as part of the atelier work in Wade's studio, but I found it a most exciting way to paint. Painting with this method calls for a canvas prepared with a dark red ground (burnt umber, burnt sienna and white gesso). The painting palette consists of what Wade referred to as an "extended earth palette": Transparent oxide red, raw sienna, yellow ochre, flesh ochre, raw umber, burnt umber, sepia extra, ivory black and cold black, and including two "prismatic" colors: Ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson.

Basically, you start by drawing in your basic forms and shadow mass with sepia extra, then you add the light mass and background colors using the extended earth palette and keeping the colors high key. You use the prismatic colors for glazing over intense local color as needed... What is amazing about this method is how quickly you see a fully resolved image. (Me thinks I will try it again soon!).

Then we come to the "full color palette." This is where things become less clear, and where Nelson Shanks' comment rings most resonant. Here we are in the 21st century, inheritors of 500 years of oil painting experience and technical developments that leaves us with an abundance of oil paints and painting materials. I guess that explains the overwhelming array of colors available in most art stores... A brilliant medley that makes me want one of everything! But also leaves me wondering if facing so many possibilities (of colors to choose for your palette) can be too much of a good thing.

I have read that studies show that when faced with two dozen varieties of jam in a grocery store, for example (or lots of options in an art shop?), people often choose arbitrarily or walk away without making any choice at all, rather than labor to make a choice. I have found that as I read or attended workshops, I never came across the same palette preference (on the part of the instructor) twice. For example, here are three full color palettes from three respected contemporary artists:

Bo Bartlett: Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red Med., Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Green, Raw Umber, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Violet

Richard Scmidt: Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, Terra Rosa, Alizarin Crimson, Transparent Oxide Red, Viridian, Cobalt Blue Light, Ultramarine Blue Deep

David Leffel: Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Venetian Red, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Red Light, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber, Ivory Black

When it comes to choosing colors for your palette... how do you decide? You love the work of a particular artist, so you try working in her palette. But is that it? Do you imprint on that palette? Or do you explore? There are so many aspects to it: what you are painting (e.g., landscape v animal fur v human portrait) ... what appeals to you... and perhaps most importantly, how the colors behave together.

I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about the chemistry of oil paints, but I do have a profound respect for how much chemistry determines the interactions of the colors. (Just try mixing vermillion with cobalt blue for example... and compare that to cadmium red light mixed with cobalt blue. Most of us, viewing a dollop of cad red light and vermillion next to each other would see them as extremely similar colors. But boy, do they behave differently!) So you have a matrix of considerations at play... how do you choose?

I would love to hear from someone who struggled with this and came to a choice that is truly theirs.