Blog

The Limited Palette -

It is said that the great Swedish artist Andrés Zorn used a very limited palette consisting of Yellow Ochre, Vermillion, Black and White. Zorn’s early watercolors show that he used a strong blue as well. The use of a very limited palette of color works very well for the realist because it forces one to focus on value when turning form in space. The illusion of form on a two dimensional surface is best achieved when the artist has a strong understanding of color mixing. Limiting your palette makes mixing color for harmony easier.

Here is how you get a full range of cools and warms with the Zorn Palette:

Yellow ochre mixed with black will give you natural earthy greens and the addition of vermillion to the mix will make the green more neutral.

Yellow ochre mixed with vermillion produces rich beautiful oranges. Blue added to the mix makes rich browns.

Yellow ochre mixed with a blue produces stronger greens when mixed with black.

Yellow ochre mixed with white will raise the value and give the color a cooler appearance.

Vermillion mixed with black produces shades of purple. If you mix vermillion with a blue you will get a more intense violet.

Vermillion mixed with white gives lovely warm pinks which can look cooler with the addition of a little blue.

Black and White in this limited palette are used to raise and lower the value of mixed colors. Adding black often makes a mixture look warmer while adding white makes a cooler color.

Here is a chart showing the color that can be achieved with this limited palette.

This is one of Zorn’s oil paintings: Notice that the limited use of color achieves the very natural realism and convincing form that makes Andrés Zorn’s work so strong. It is the masterful use ofvalue that does the work.

Using this limited palette is a great exercise for artists to try. When my students have been limited to these four or five colors they discover how effective and harmonized the colors can be in interpreting reality.

It is not impossible to use a large range of colors when painting but it requires a deep knowledge of color mixing to avoid garish and flat results in the painting. The work of Nelson Shanks is an excellent example of an artist who used a large range of colors but was able to harmonize them into richly colored paintings.