Experiencing Joy Through Art

   Hey all! Good morning and Happy August! Ah...another nice summer day. Part of what I love about summer is waking up to that beautiful clear sunlight that seems to be unique to this time of year. Especially in the morning before it gets hot.

   Last year I posted a blog entry about the colors I used on my oil painting palette. As an artist, it's hard to resist those brightly colored tubes calling to you in the art supply store, so artists do tend to wind up with lots of paint! However there are a core set of colors that are the ones we put out on our palette that is our Palette with a capital "P". It is as unique to each artist as his or her signature, and while there is probably a lot of overlap, each artist has arrived at that array of colors through experience and need.

   Since my post last year I have made some adjustments to the colors I use. There were colors I had been putting out for years that I finally realized (admitted?) that I never reached for and piles of expensive paint would be squeezed out in anticipation and then scraped off later dry and unused. 

   I finally decided to sit down and pare my colors down to the ones I really need and use in practically every painting. My goal was to be as brutal as possible. There were some hard but necessary cuts I had to make. One of them was violet. I had been putting it out on my palette simply because it is my favorite color. However, I found that I almost never reached for it as bright violet tends to be rare in nature except for flowers and certain types of outdoor shadows. Now it is only kept on hand as supplemental color when needed, and a number of extra tubes were either exchanged for colors on my new line-up (Blick has a wonderful 365 day return policy!), or sold on eBay.

   The same fate befell my Cadmium Orange, Pyrrol Red, Cobalt Teal, Phthalo Green and Olive Green. They are all now supplemental colors as well.  I swapped out Burnt Umber, which tends to be a bit muddy, for Transparent Oxide Brown. I did add two colors that I discovered that I just love and turned out to be quite useful. They are Lead Tin Yellow and Raw Umber. It is important to note here that the Raw Umber I find most useful must be cool rather than warm. The only two brands I have found that have just the right cool tone are Richeson Shiva and Vasari. I had been searching for a color like that and finally found it!

   Now I am satisfied I have finally arrived at the best palette for me and my art at this point in time! I use every color I put out and there is a lot less waste. Plus, contending with fewer colors is easier and more cost-effective in the long run. So now the new line up of pigments shapes up like this:

Lead Tin Yellow

Cadmium Lemon

Cadmium Yellow Deep

Yellow Ochre

Cadmium Red Light

Quinacridone Magenta

Transparent Oxide Red

Transparent Oxide Brown

Raw Umber

Ultramarine Blue

Phthalo Blue

Ivory Black

Flake White

   I find I can mix pretty much any color I need from this set. Ultramarine and Quinacridone Magenta will even make a pretty darned nice violet. But I still have those tubes of Dioxazine Violet in my "overflow" drawer just in case! Are there any pet colors you find indispensible on your palette? Please share with us!