The power of a limited palette of desaturated colors

RenatoNF

Active member
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31
Hi CS,

Here's my latest experiment with palette study and it's potential, now with only white and 4 desaturated colors:

Titanium White, Yellow Ocre, Terra Rosa, WN Purple Lake (PBr25+PV23) and WN Perylene Black.

With this palette, I've painted this landscape bellow, and the only part I had to bring a out a new tube was for the light greens on the leaves of the main tree, because it was a bit too much for YO+PB, was not going to get me to that hue and value. But otherwise, very nice experiment to avoid bright colors and only bring a new tube when needed.

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Hi Renato. Interesting idea for an experiment. Unfortunately, your attachments are not showing up (at least for me). I get the message "

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The requested page could not be found." when I click on the links.
 
Can you see it new Sandra?
Hi Renato. Interesting idea for an experiment. Unfortunately, your attachments are not showing up (at least for me). I get the message "

Oops! We ran into some problems.​


The requested page could not be found." when I click on the links.
 
I can see it, thanks. Want to give this a go in some of my drawing media (or as I can them dry painting media).
 
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It's a very beautiful landscape! And thank you for sharing the results of your very orderly and excellent color test.
How many of your tube colors are single pigment?

Edit: That Perylene Black is an odd duck! I'm pleased to learn of it :)
 
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I can see it, thanks. Want to give this a go in some of my drawing media (or as I can them painting media).
Oh give it a go, yes. It was intresting for me to be limited in color range, and i've come to appreciate the handling characteristics of earth colors, mainly its tinting strengh.

It's a very beautiful landscape! And thank you for sharing the results of your very orderly and excellent color test.
How many of your tube colors are single pigment?

Thanks a lot Laika, glad to share both !!
I think I only have 3 tubes that are mixtures: WN Olive Green (PY110+PBk6), WN Purple Lake (PBr25+PV23) and Gamblin Sap Green (PY83+PB15). I can recommend all 3, but this Purple Lake is the most suprinsing, really intresting, mainly because it is almost black, with high tinting strengh and a somewhat desaturated color. So you can use it as a black for some mixtures without it going grey, as it usually happens with carbon blacks.

The others tubes i carry are all single pigments.
my main all around palette is this one (5 desaturated + 3 saturated colors). I have other tubes in hand if needed, like phthalo green, quin. magenta and indian yellow.

Titanium White (PW6+PW4)
Yellow Ochre (PY 43)
Terra Rosa (PR101)
Purple Lake (PBr25 + PV23)
Perylene Black (PBk 31)
Hansa Yellow (PY 74)
Perylene Red (PR 149)
Phthalocyanine Blue (PB 15:3)
 
Oh give it a go, yes. It was intresting for me to be limited in color range, and i've come to appreciate the handling characteristics of earth colors, mainly its tinting strengh.
Given that I'd be working with colored pencils and possibly also watercolor crayons (and thus not know the exact pigments I'd be dealing with), the results will be interesting. In my mixing tests I was able to get olive-looking green that was not muddy from yellow and black.
 
Given that I'd be working with colored pencils and possibly also watercolor crayons (and thus not know the exact pigments I'd be dealing with), the results will be interesting. In my mixing tests I was able to get olive-looking green that was not muddy from yellow and black.
I remember being amazed a while back to find that black and yellow ochre produced greens!
Hahaha, exactly. To darken yellow properlly, a bunch of red / magenta is needed.
I was surprised to see that a lot of landscape artists made "green" grass with a hue very close to yellow (a lot more desaturated), so, yeah, yellow and black makes green and its very useful
 
It's a very beautiful landscape! And thank you for sharing the results of your very orderly and excellent color test.
How many of your tube colors are single pigment?

Edit: That Perylene Black is an odd duck! I'm pleased to learn of it :)
Perylene Black is my black of choice because of it's unique transparency and tinting strength characteristcs. As a bonus, it dries glossy, contrary to most carbon blacks, so your darks will still look glossy while waiting for the varnish. The green undertone of PBk31 is surprisingly useful, but if a neutral is needed, Perylene Red is almost perfect oposite on the color wheel (funny that 2 perelynes cancel each other out hahaha)
 
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