Palette Layout
My pallet is an expansion of the Golden OPEN Modern Paint Set. Whenever I start a painting, I set up my pallet with the same colors, arranged as shown in the photo below.
Due to the slow drying properties of Golden OPEN Acrylic paint, these paints will stay useable on the palette for a month or so if stored in the containers pictured below, as described in the Palette Management Section.
As depicted in the image below, there are three types of colors placed on the palette, six intense relatively transparent modern colors (three warm and three cool colors), Titanium White White (an opaque tinting color), and two dull colors, whose use is magical, as I will describe below. These six paints from the Golden OPEN Modern Paint Set Are relatively high chroma, transparent, organic pigments (which produce very clean mixtures).plus titanium white.
The specific warm colors placed on the left hand side of the pallet include Golden OPEN Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) Blue, Naphthol Red Light, and Hansa Yellow Medium. The specific cool colors along the top edge of the pallet are Hansa Yellow Light, Quinacridone Magenta, Anthraquinone Blue Blue.
The advantage of separating the warm and colors is that it supports the process of color mixing while painting. As I paint, I modify the color mixtures on my pallet to match the colors I need in my painting by asking myself questions such as should the color on my pallet be warmer, cooler, more red, lighter, darker, etc. This organization of the pallet makes it easier to immediately pick the appropriate warm or cool color, or the best color for tinting or shading.
The Titanium White is placed at the upper left corner of the palette. Titanium white is the standard tinting color. Tinting is the addition of white to a mixture to make the color lighter, or raising the value of the mixture.
The two dull colors, placed below the top row are a dull orange on the right, and a dull yellow on the left. I mix these two colors ahead of time in bulk from the Golden OPEN Color set, as described later in this Section. I then store my mixtures in jars, and then dish out some when ever I lay out a new palette. Later in this section, I’ll describe the valuable use of these two dull colors in adjusting the hue, value and intensity of the colors Being mixed in the painting process.
The specific warm colors placed on the left hand side of the pallet include Golden OPEN Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) Blue, Naphthol Red Light, and Hansa Yellow Medium. The specific cool colors along the top edge of the pallet are Hansa Yellow Light, Quinacridone Magenta, Anthraquinone Blue Blue.
The advantage of separating the warm and colors is that it supports the process of color mixing while painting. As I paint, I modify the color mixtures on my pallet to match the colors I need in my painting by asking myself questions such as should the color on my pallet be warmer, cooler, more red, lighter, darker, etc. This organization of the pallet makes it easier to immediately pick the appropriate warm or cool color, or the best color for tinting or shading.
The Titanium White is placed at the upper left corner of the palette. Titanium white is the standard tinting color. Tinting is the addition of white to a mixture to make the color lighter, or raising the value of the mixture.
The two dull colors, placed below the top row are a dull orange on the right, and a dull yellow on the left. I mix these two colors ahead of time in bulk from the Golden OPEN Color set, as described later in this Section. I then store my mixtures in jars, and then dish out some when ever I lay out a new palette. Later in this section, I’ll describe the valuable use of these two dull colors in adjusting the hue, value and intensity of the colors Being mixed in the painting process.
As depicted above, there are a set of “As Needed Colors” that I keep on the side and introduce into the mixtures on the palette when needed. These include Zinc White, Bone Black, Carbon Black, and Phthalo Green Blue/Shade.
Zinc White is a useful tinting color. It is transparent and can lighten the value of colors without changing the hue. This can be useful, as opposed to opaque Titanium White which can introduce a pastel or chalky characteristic when tinting. Properly applied, these two colors can help control both the value and opacity of the mixtures to meet the needs of the particular application.
Shading is adding a paint to a mixture to lower the value or make the mixture darker. Bone black and carbon black are potential shading colors. Bone black is reasonably transparent with a moderately low chroma and can be used to lower the value of paint mixtures with a minimum impact on the hue of the mixtures to which it is added. Carbon black, similar to titanium white, is very opaque and is useful when a dark opaque color is needed. These shading colors can be used when needed. However, I now favor using the two dull colors on the palette for this effect when needed, which I will describe below.
Another color that can be useful at times is Phthalo Green Blue/Shade, an intense green. This color is part of the Golden OPEN Modern Color Set. It is an intense green and can be added to mixtures when it’s intensity is needed. It is also one of the colors used to mix the dull yellow and dull orange colors, which will be described later in this section.
I also use mixture of Golden regular and OPEN gel mediums And molding pastes to enable me to do impasto knife painting with a drying time similar to my normal thinner applications of OPEN paints (which I have discussed in a previous Blog post).
A useful way of looking at the Modern Color Set is in the framework of Michael Wilcox's book, "Blue and Yellow don't make Green." This is a great book which explains what actually makes color mixing work.
Basically, white light has a spectrum of all colors. Blue pigments look blue because they absorb all of the colors in the light except blue, which it reflects back to the viewer. Similarly, yellow pigments absorb all of the colors of the light except the yellow, which it reflect back to the viewer. Therefore, if you mixed pure blue and pure yellow pigments, the blue would absorb the yellow and the yellow would absorb the blue and the mixture would look black!!!
The reason that blue paint and yellow paint can mix a green is that, in reality, the blue pigment contains some green and the yellow pigment contains some green. When the two are mixed together all the colors are absorbed, except the greens that they have in common. Therefore, if you want to mix a strong green, you must pick a yellow that has a large green content and a blue that contains a large green content.
This is illustrated in the above color wheel where the component colors of each pigment are depicted. Notice the Hansa Light and the Phthalo Blu are the colors with the largest green component. Therefore with our modern pallet, to get a strong green we would mix our blue with a lot of green, Phthalo Blue (Green Shade), and our yellow that has a large green content, Hansa Yellow Light.
On the other hand, the Anthraquinone Blue and Hansa Yellow Medium paint pigments each have less green content, as illustrated on the above color wheel. Therefore, when these colors are mixed a weaker green will result.
Therefore, it its useful to consider two properties for each of our six basic modern colors; the relative warm or cool properties of the paint, and the component pigments that will drive the mixing properties. Therefore, for our pallet we have the following:
Hansa Yellow Light: cool yellow, yellow and green (Y/G) pigments
Hansa Yellow Medium: warm yellow, yellow and orange (Y/O) pigments
Quinacridone Magenta: cool red, red and violet (R/V) pigments
Naphthol Red Light: warm red, red and orange (R/O) pigments
Phthalo Blue Green Shade: warm blue, blue and green (B/G) pigments
Anthraquinone Blue: cool blue, blue and violet (B/V) pigments
Phthalo Green Blue Shade: cool green, green and blue (G/B) pigments
This explains how to mix the strongest, highest chroma, secondary colors of green, orange, and violet. We get the strongest green by mixing the yellow/green color with the blue/green color We get the strongest orange by mixing or yellow/orange color with the red/orange color. We get the strongest violet by mixing the blue/violet color with the red/violet color.
The other mixtures will lead to duller, lower chroma, colors. For example, mixing our blue/green color (Phthalo Blue) with our red orange color (Naphthol Red Light) with give a very dull low chroma violet. because each color contains only a small amount of violet.
Zinc White is a useful tinting color. It is transparent and can lighten the value of colors without changing the hue. This can be useful, as opposed to opaque Titanium White which can introduce a pastel or chalky characteristic when tinting. Properly applied, these two colors can help control both the value and opacity of the mixtures to meet the needs of the particular application.
Shading is adding a paint to a mixture to lower the value or make the mixture darker. Bone black and carbon black are potential shading colors. Bone black is reasonably transparent with a moderately low chroma and can be used to lower the value of paint mixtures with a minimum impact on the hue of the mixtures to which it is added. Carbon black, similar to titanium white, is very opaque and is useful when a dark opaque color is needed. These shading colors can be used when needed. However, I now favor using the two dull colors on the palette for this effect when needed, which I will describe below.
Another color that can be useful at times is Phthalo Green Blue/Shade, an intense green. This color is part of the Golden OPEN Modern Color Set. It is an intense green and can be added to mixtures when it’s intensity is needed. It is also one of the colors used to mix the dull yellow and dull orange colors, which will be described later in this section.
I also use mixture of Golden regular and OPEN gel mediums And molding pastes to enable me to do impasto knife painting with a drying time similar to my normal thinner applications of OPEN paints (which I have discussed in a previous Blog post).
A useful way of looking at the Modern Color Set is in the framework of Michael Wilcox's book, "Blue and Yellow don't make Green." This is a great book which explains what actually makes color mixing work.
Basically, white light has a spectrum of all colors. Blue pigments look blue because they absorb all of the colors in the light except blue, which it reflects back to the viewer. Similarly, yellow pigments absorb all of the colors of the light except the yellow, which it reflect back to the viewer. Therefore, if you mixed pure blue and pure yellow pigments, the blue would absorb the yellow and the yellow would absorb the blue and the mixture would look black!!!
The reason that blue paint and yellow paint can mix a green is that, in reality, the blue pigment contains some green and the yellow pigment contains some green. When the two are mixed together all the colors are absorbed, except the greens that they have in common. Therefore, if you want to mix a strong green, you must pick a yellow that has a large green content and a blue that contains a large green content.
This is illustrated in the above color wheel where the component colors of each pigment are depicted. Notice the Hansa Light and the Phthalo Blu are the colors with the largest green component. Therefore with our modern pallet, to get a strong green we would mix our blue with a lot of green, Phthalo Blue (Green Shade), and our yellow that has a large green content, Hansa Yellow Light.
On the other hand, the Anthraquinone Blue and Hansa Yellow Medium paint pigments each have less green content, as illustrated on the above color wheel. Therefore, when these colors are mixed a weaker green will result.
Therefore, it its useful to consider two properties for each of our six basic modern colors; the relative warm or cool properties of the paint, and the component pigments that will drive the mixing properties. Therefore, for our pallet we have the following:
Hansa Yellow Light: cool yellow, yellow and green (Y/G) pigments
Hansa Yellow Medium: warm yellow, yellow and orange (Y/O) pigments
Quinacridone Magenta: cool red, red and violet (R/V) pigments
Naphthol Red Light: warm red, red and orange (R/O) pigments
Phthalo Blue Green Shade: warm blue, blue and green (B/G) pigments
Anthraquinone Blue: cool blue, blue and violet (B/V) pigments
Phthalo Green Blue Shade: cool green, green and blue (G/B) pigments
This explains how to mix the strongest, highest chroma, secondary colors of green, orange, and violet. We get the strongest green by mixing the yellow/green color with the blue/green color We get the strongest orange by mixing or yellow/orange color with the red/orange color. We get the strongest violet by mixing the blue/violet color with the red/violet color.
The other mixtures will lead to duller, lower chroma, colors. For example, mixing our blue/green color (Phthalo Blue) with our red orange color (Naphthol Red Light) with give a very dull low chroma violet. because each color contains only a small amount of violet.
Let’s now consider the important role in color mixing of the two dull colors on our palette, the dull yellow and dull orange illustrated below.
These two colors are mixed from other colors In the Modern Color Set. I store the mixtures in jars and add them to the palette when I set it up. The mixture ratios for the colors are give below.
Dull Yellow:
Hansa Yellow Medium. 45 parts
Napthol Red Light. 7 parts
Phthalo Green (blue/shade). 1 part
Dull Orange:
Napthol Red Light. 2 parts
Hansa Yellow Medium. 2 parts
Phthalo Green (blue/shade). 1 part
The mixture for the dull yellow is the formula for Yellow Ochre without the white that would be added for the ochre.
The mixture for the dull orange Is the formula for Burnt Umber. However it is a bit more transparent.
As illustrated in the above color wheel by their position closer to the center, these are dull, less intense colors. Many colors in nature are on the less intense side. This is the key to the magic importance of these colors in the color mixing process! Adding these colors to other mixtures of the high intense modern color set will beautifully soften the colors and give a more realistic effect. In addition, they are both beautiful colors on there own. Below are two simple applications using these dull colors.
The image below is an example of mixing the dull orange with Anthraquinone Blue. The colors are so dark that it is necessary to add white to see what’s going on! Orange is the compliment of blue. Therefore, in the below image, as we go down adding more dull orange the intensity of the blue gets lower and lower, till it becomes black at the bottom!
Examples of the use of the dull orange include adding It to sky colors to reduce the intensity and mirror the actual sky colors. Also the black color at the bottom of the image below can be used to shade other colors. This obviates the need to use Bone Black or Carbon Black. Can just mix your own! And you have the benefit of making it slightly more blue or orange to better fit your need!
Examples of the use of the dull orange include adding It to sky colors to reduce the intensity and mirror the actual sky colors. Also the black color at the bottom of the image below can be used to shade other colors. This obviates the need to use Bone Black or Carbon Black. Can just mix your own! And you have the benefit of making it slightly more blue or orange to better fit your need!
Similarly, the image below illustrates the use of the dull yellow. Here the mixture of a Anthraquinone Blue and Hansa Yellow Light make a rather intense, and possibly unrealistic green. Adding some dull yellow makes it a slightly less intense, and possibly a more realistic green. Then in the lower right I added some of the dull orange to the green mixture. You can see a very nice dark green results. This because the dull orange dulled the blue in the mixture.
These examples are just a small sample of the wonderful effects you can achieve with these colors!
These examples are just a small sample of the wonderful effects you can achieve with these colors!
This palette and supporting As Needed Colors provide a perfect framework for ColorPool Painting. Color Pool Painting is the process of mixing a pool of color on the palette and then modifying its hue, value or intensity by adding other colors. With our palette, since the mixtures will remain useable for a month or so, the same pools of colors can be used and modified throughout the creation of a painting. This helps support achieving color harmony.
Below is the image of what I call “my green palette”. This is a good example of “color pool painting”! Notice the big “pool” of green color. Within the big pool you can identify many smaller sections where the basic green has been modified by adding other colors to achieve areas of warmer, cooler, lighter, darker, more intense, or less intense green colors.
Since this palette is useable over a long period of time, these same colors will be available over the life of executing a painting. This enables harmonious additions and modifications to the painting.
In fact, “my green palette” has been useable for several months and has been used to supply harmonious greens to several paintings!
Below is the image of what I call “my green palette”. This is a good example of “color pool painting”! Notice the big “pool” of green color. Within the big pool you can identify many smaller sections where the basic green has been modified by adding other colors to achieve areas of warmer, cooler, lighter, darker, more intense, or less intense green colors.
Since this palette is useable over a long period of time, these same colors will be available over the life of executing a painting. This enables harmonious additions and modifications to the painting.
In fact, “my green palette” has been useable for several months and has been used to supply harmonious greens to several paintings!
The following photo depicts one of the handouts that I provide to my workshop participants interested in understanding and using the colors on the Augmented Modern Color Set pallet of paints. It provides a number of valuable reference sources!
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Copyright @ 2011, Joe Bergholm, All rights reserved.