Colours for Split Primaries

[Marc]

I find limited palettes hard work though, because it involves so much mixing. There are certain premixes and earth colours that I really love. I don't want to spend ages trying to mix those myself every time.

Pretty much why I don't use it myself.

That, and really, apart from the cyan blue in the cool, the ultramarine blue and orange red cadmium in the warm, the colours aren't absolutely bulletproof lightfast. Just pretty good or very good and much better than Alizarin crimson. God forbid any painting should be left in full sunlight, but if the primary palette pictures are for many years, they'll be like those photos that end up fading leaving the blue portions. The perfect original image is only as durable as the weakest pigment.

 

[E.J.H.]

Hi Marc. Are you talking about a specific palette? Because afaik there are quite a lot of pigments "bulletproof" beside those few you name.

 

[Marc]

The problem is finding completely true primaries that are absolutely last the centuries permanent. Not finding super lightfast colour pigments at all.

 

[E.J.H.]

Well, I think you lost me there, no such thing as a "true" primary I think. The further you dig in color theory the weirder it gets...

 

[Marc]

It's certainly weird. One of the subtractive colours sort of doesn't exist in light. We only see magenta because the human eye records both blue and red, but no colour at all in between. So the human brain goes "well, um, I'll just make up a halfway between the two then."

However subtractive primaries are the best way of getting clearest colours in paint mixtures when using only three colours.

But why should we bother at all when there are so many coloured pigments? A reduced palette does train one to mix colours more quickly as you get to know your paints very well and how they behave together, but it seems too limiting for me personally.

 

[Hermes2020]

Claudia and Marc, I agree with everything you say. There are some desirable colours that are either impossible to mix, or too much effort. In those cases I find it more convenient to just buy what I need. I am so lazy that I even buy Davy's Gray and Payne's Gray, colours I could mix myself with a bit of effort.

 

[Artyczar]

I only mix some colors, while others I buy.

It would be fun for us all to post pictures of the basic palettes that we use (more or less). If not actual paint, the colors we use.

 

[Hermes2020]

I only mix some colors, while others I buy.

It would be fun for us all to post pictures of the basic palettes that we use (more or less). If not actual paint, the colors we use.

That sounds like a good idea, so I will kick off. I don't have a fixed palette that I use for all my paintings, but choose appropriate colours for each one I'm working on. I will use this one as an example, because at first glance it may look as if I only used black, white, and red, but to get the right look I used nine colours. They were mostly Winsor & Newton alkyds, with a few of their Artist's Oils.

These are the colours on the palette:
Titanium White
Payne's Gray
Lamp Black
Davy's Gray
Perylene Black
Indian Red
Indian Yellow
Permanent Rose
Burnt Umber

I used Liquin Light Gel for the glazed areas, mainly the red shape.

I am lazy, so instead of mixing the greys, I just buy them pre-mixed. Perylene Black is an unbelievably interesting and useful colour that I would recommend to anyone who likes to explore different effects.

 

[Artyczar]

I made this sample a long time ago, but my palette has changed a bit since, because I've made a couple of different series since using this very colorful palette. I also mix more, but this was probably a bit before 2016 or so. These are all mostly Gamblin, except for Raw and Burnt Umber, which is Daler-Rowney:

I still like most of these but also use/have replaced some with:

Titanium Buff
Titanium White
Hansa Yellow
Cadmium Yellow Deep
Cerulean Blue
Radiant Violet
Phalo Blue
Napthol Scarlet