Blog

ADDING ADDITIONAL COLORS TO YOUR 12 HUE HIGH CHROMA PALETTE

Today there are many hues to choose from when buying artists oil paint. For me, having a range of hues in each color family makes painting more interesting. I like to have mostly opaque and some transparent colors for my color wheel. I recommend Gamblin Oil Paint when students are starting out but there are other companies that offer excellent paint. In the first two blogs I suggested twelve colors that would complete a high chroma palette of opaque or semi-opaque hues. These colors cover the canvas with a rich color field provided you do not mix too much medium into them. I suggest you limit using medium as much as possible. Too much medium can result in dripping oil on the canvas and eventually the surface will not accept any additional oil. This is more important for painters applying multiple layers of paint. This is the list of colors that my students start with when setting up their color wheel.

You could stay with these twelve colors but I want to suggest an extended palette. Most of the new colors will be transparent which are useful for glazing or for darkening colors without shifting the color to another family.

ADDITIONS TO THE WARM COLORS -

Y - Yellow Ochre, Transparent Yellow Oxide (Earth Yellow) These two additional yellows will lower the value of Cadmium Yellow while remaining in the yellow family.

 

O - Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber These are part of the orange family and are very helpful when lowering Cadmium Orange without moving the color too red or yellow.

 

RO - Transparent Red Oxide (Earth Red) Adding a transparent warm red will darken Cadmium Reds. It is also useful for glazing.

 

ADDITIONS TO THE COOL COLORS -

The cool colors are mostly dark transparent or semi-transparent hues. Mixing in white or black to the cool colors will raise or lower their value because black and white are themselves cool. There are a few colors that I would recommend adding to the cool palette mostly to increase saturation in that color family.

RV - Quinacridone Magenta (transparent) Quinacridone colors are vibrant chemical colors that remain vibrant when tinted with white.

 

V - Egyptian Violet, Ultramarine Violet, Most Violets are transparent but I have found that Egyptian Violet (Williamsburg Oil Paint) is denser and therefore covers the canvas with the darkest purple. It is extremely saturated so it explodes with vibrancy when mixed with white. Ultramarine Violet is a very weak color but useful for glazing.

 

BV - Ultramarine Blue (transparent) I only suggest Ultramarine Blue because it is a true transparent and leans a little more towards a violet than Cobalt Blue and is useful for glazing.

 

B - Manganese Blue (transparent) To tint Manganese Blue or Cerulean Blue you add white. To darken Manganese and Cerulean add black. Remember that black darkens any cool color without shifting the color family to  another color because black is a very dark blue. Add white to black and you will get a very cool gray that appears bluish.

 

G - Sap Green (transparent) Sap Green is a dark vibrant green useful when you need to darken a green mixture but do not want to lose the intensity of the mixed color.

 

YG - Olive Green, Raw Umber Both of these colors are earthy and will darken green mixtures while keeping them warm. Raw Umber is often used for tinting a white canvas before starting the painting.

 

Gamblin Oil Paints makes a line of opaque radiant colors which I find very helpful when raising a color’s value. 

The radiant colors are already mixed with white and when mixed with darker colors they seem to hold a higher saturation than tinting with white alone. Before I add white to a color I consider if there is a similar radiant color that will work better than white in raising the hues value. Most of the additional colors that I have suggested are transparent which means that they have less covering power when used alone but mixed with opaque colors they deepen the hue without shifting it to another color family. Transparent colors make wonderful glazes which I will discuss in a future blog. When adding a new color to your palette note where it belongs on the color wheel. All colors are part of one of the twelve colors on the color wheel even though it may be darker or less saturated. Note whether it is a warm color or cool color. Knowing what family that new color belongs to will help you when mixing. Mixing warm colors together will not make muddy dull colors. The same goes for the cool colors. It is when you add a color that is from the opposite side of the color wheel (or opposite temperature) that you begin to muddy down the color towards a neutral. There are many colors and many good manufacturers of color that you can choose from.

Avoid paint that is listed as student grade. They will not deliver the power of color that you will want for your paintings. Good paint cost a little more but will be worth it in the end.

 

Next blog will be on the benefits of limiting your color choices to achieve harmony when mixing and I will discuss the very limited Andrés Zorn palette of color.