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.

I have a keen interest in how things are put together. When I was a child, my parents treated me to mechanical toys like tractors, space ships and boats that were made out of metal and had small tabs that bound each piece of the toy together. Using a small screwdriver, I could pry open the tabs and disassemble the toy into its component parts. Once my father brought home a tractor that had a transparent engine with pistons that you could see moving up and down as the tractor moved about the floor. It took me about 45 minutes to take the entire thing apart. I was desperate to see what made the pistons go up and down. 

I’ve carried that curiosity about how things are made into adulthood. I’m fascinated to know how paints are made. While some art material manufacturers may have believed that my probing questions were aimed at exposing the secrets of making paints so that I could go out and start a company of my own, I was merely interested in knowing how the paint was made. (Note: After asking enough questions about paint manufacturing, I believe you would have to be insane to start to make paint today. It is expensive to undertake, fraught with potential problems and comes without much support.

On a number of trips to New York I followed an art materials “pilgrimage route” that started on Canal Street with a visit to Pearl Paint (www.pearlpaint.com).  Moving up through lower Manhattan, I found three art materials stores in sight of each other. David Davis Fine Art Materials (www.daviddavisnyc.stores.yahoo.net), Kremer Pigments (www.kremer-pigmente.de/homee.htm) and Vasari Classic Artists’ Oil Colors (http://www.shopvasaricolors.com) were all within a hundred yards of each other. The art materials walk would conclude on Third Avenue with a visit to New York Central Art Supply (www.nycentralart.com).

I met Gail, the owner of Vasari Classic Artists’ Oil Colors several years ago the first time I made the “pilgrimage” in lower Manhattan. She told me about the paints and had a unique method of discussing the qualities of each pigment. She had a light gray plastic laminate table and mixed paint on the surface to show the working properties of the colors she discussed. I was mesmerized by her knowledge of pigments and the color combinations she produced. Colors I never considered using were transformed by mixing them with other paints to produce a luscious array of hues. It opened my mind to the vast number of combinations that exists for making colors that artist can select. It made me realize that palettes are very personal and based on ways we individually map out our color space. 

Vasari uses a simple approach to making paint. However, the selection of colors and suggestions for mixing are far from simple. Vasari avoids avoid the use of fillers and dryers and make paint in the same fashion as had been done by 16th- through19th-century color men. Vasari basically uses alkali refined linseed oil and powder pigment to produce their product line. Vasari paints contain a substantial amount of pigment, and they carefully select hues from a wide range of pigments available in order to obtain colors that help the artist to avoid making muddy, dull mixtures.

Paint makers have no manual that provides them instruction for making paint. They learn through a combination of trial and error along with some technical support by the pigment and /or binder manufacturer. All of the manufacturers today had to learn to make paint by some very generic formulas along with a lot of experimentation. This is the part where I refer to bravery triumphs over insanity and allows the paint maker to make a living selling paint.

Since our first meeting I’ve grown to appreciate the personal vision that Vasari puts into the oil paints they make. They provide another avenue for artists to explore. The diversity of personal visions is what makes the artistic community so great, and it’s the diversity of personal visions each manufacturer embodies—engineered into the products available to artists—that make this industry so interesting.

Perhaps you have a story to share about a personal experience with a paint manufacturer.  The industry has so many choices for artists. I’ve had marvelous experiences using and talking to the folks who make Gamblin Artists Colors (www.gamblincolors.com), Winsor & Newton (http://www.winsornewton.com), Golden Artist Acrylics (www.goldenpaints.com) and many others. Each has a part to contribute to making the world of artists’ materials.  I will talk about each in future Web log entries.