Limited palette and other experiments

Having amassed more colours than were genuinely useful I decided to experiment with simplifying my process and painting some pictures with a limited palette.

One of my teachers a few years ago had our class paint self portraits using paine's grey, burnt sienna and raw sienna, an exercise I found instructive.

After some experiments I decided to roll with the "Zorn palette" named after the Swede Anders Zorn. (He was known as the Swedish Sargent - check out his self portrait in red, it's a real ripper). The combination is similar to my teacher's, but with a punchier red. The palette is ivory black, yellow ochre, and vermillion red (a middle red containing mercury... highly poisonous... ancient tubes still obtainable at my art store here in Taichung!)

 A surprising array of colours can be attained with only red, yellow ochre and black (and of course white). The red I used was a mix of alizarin and cadmium red light. The black was a mix of ivory black and ultramarine blue, the blue helping to attain greens when mixing with the yellow ochre.

Self portrait - my first foray with the Zorn palette

This palette is great for skin tones and portraiture but not so great for landscapes - I had to cheat and add some blue to get a greener green for the landscape I attempted.

There is a lot to be said for simplifying the palette. By making colour decisions so easy it frees you up to concentrate on other aspects of painting. It unifies the painting as almost any colour on the canvas will contain the same ingredients as any other. It makes life easier. I've enjoyed the experiment greatly and while I wouldn't use a limited palette exclusively, it seems to me a great way to make a sketch or lay out a painting that can then be expanded on with more colours.

Serious artists eat their eggs with a palette knife.

 I added some blue to the palette with this one to get stronger greens. This composition is successful but the sky could do with some livening up, and I could sure use some more practice painting trees!

I cheated by adding some blue for the tie on this painting of my parents in law.

After all that limited palette stuff I felt like busting out the cadmiums for this one. I was going for the Margaret Preston type black outlines... not sure if it was too successful... but it was certainly fun.

I had fun with the lurid green on this one too. Meet Claire and Jason's wounded puppy!!

I am still fooling around with this painting of an everyday Taiwanese scene. I was surprised at how difficult it was to get the colour of lamplit ashphalt. The board is a little small for a lot of detail so I might not do much more...

Val's beautiful smile