In preparing to set out to paint in a remote location, good planning and preparation are necessary. An opportunity to paint outside gave me reason to look carefully at my palette of colors and make some decisions. I am torn between starting out with a very limited palette of three primary colors, along with black and white, and learn to cope with whatever comes my way. However, this yearly painting outing and the opportunity to do some serious outdoor work are not the ideal time to experiment with a palette unfamiliar to me.

I have lectured on palette choices for the last year, and one would think that armed with this knowledge, I could make an educated decision and come up with a reasonable number of colors that would satisfy me. Recently, I worked a good deal with some color mixing exercises that forced me to use a restricted palette. The motions of applying palette knife to paint and spreading it about to create the desired colors felt as if I were using my regular comfortable set of colors, but I had to repeat the “mantra” that outlined the basic primary color mixing combinations that we all learned as children. I did not have a lot of choices, so my natural tendency to reach for a secondary or tertiary color to modify a mixture was taken away. Now I had to make the secondary or tertiary color from scratch and adjust accordingly.

Then I realized, when working with a limited palette of red, blue and yellow, our brains (or at least my brain) are not adapted to see a color that we wish to create as a formulation of percentages of red, blue and yellow. I can’t look at the shadow side of a piece of fruit like an orange and think in my head: 4 dabs of yellow, 1.7 dabs of red and 1.5 dabs of blue. I will make an orange color out of the red and yellow and then adjust it with some blue to provide the right value and chroma to indicate the shadow side of the painting of the fruit in question. I would never start with the blue and yellow to make green and then adjust it with the yellow to make the orange color I required. That is a simple example. Try making a color that approaches a tinted grey. Mixing grey hues from primary palettes takes a fairly high degree of patience and perseverance.  For me, once the right grey value is achieved, I can add the hue to tilt the grey in the direction that I want. The point is that sometimes the most efficient way to get to a color is by a succession of mixing waypoints rather than a straight line. 

Critics of "expanded palettes" would claim that by juggling so many colors, another term for variables, the chance of failure increases. This argument has a lot of legitimacy. So many colors laid out on a palette become a confusing array of choices and they can overcrowd an artist’s work surface. It becomes hard to make sense of the number of combinations that can be used to achieve a desired color. 

"Limited palette" supporters label colors outside of the primaries as “convenience” colors.  The term “convenience” colors seems to imply that artists who use them are lazy or inept at color mixing. I don’t agree for two important reasons. In most cases, I would rather apply paint to the painting rather than spend time mixing. An artist does not get “extra credit” for solving difficult mixing problems. As a matter of fact, an artist is penalized to an extent if color mixing takes so long that production of finished paintings suffers. The viewer does not care how hard the artist worked to achieve a desired color. The second reason that convenience colors seem fine for use is that many secondary/tertiary hues offer subtle overtones that a strict primary palette would be hard pressed to achieve. 

Both primary palette and expanded palette artists quickly realize that compromise is a part of either system. Expanded palette users must gain mastery of the subtle difference and oddities of each of the colors they use.  They gain in having colors that suit their personal style and are shaped to the type of hues they wish to represent. Primary palette users must select three broad ranges, powerful colors, so that with only these hues, they can create every possible color.  While this feat is achievable, the price is high especially for landscape painters. High chroma primary colors must be muted considerable to match the look and feel of a natural landscape.  Primary palettes shout when soft whispers are the order of the day. Primary palette artists have the advantage of quickly creating high chroma mixes that are very powerful.

One of the sayings that nearly everyone who has visited a hardware store knows is, “ the right tool for the job.” This is so very appropriate to the selection of colors for an artist’s palette.  An artist’s style, subject matter and personal approach to mastering color mixing all play an important role in selecting palette colors. Do you have a different opinion or a palette that does amazing things?  Please reply.  

For more information on palettes:
To read Nita Leland’s recommended list of palettes for varying painting occasions, click on
www.artistsmagazine.com/article.asp?id=2466. Practice mixing colors with Judi Betts: www.artistsmagazine.com/article.asp?id=1826. And Kay Carnie advises you to work with a limited palette of primary colors in
www.artistsmagazine.com/article.asp?id=1325.