A Muted Color palette

Kaustav

Hi,

I have been thinking of a very muted color palette for some time; like a muted DMP palette. I have made a few choices below. Need confirmation/suggestions on those choices. Like Zorn Palette, these colors won't produce most accurate results but interesting effects. Basic features behind the color palette are:

1. Colors are commonly available, mostly series 1-2 colors. No fancy ones
2. The paintings will be somewhat muted
3. I can lighten the colors upto white and darken the colors down to black. No change here
   
4. I can use colors that can be identified as red, blue, yellow and mixed ones purple, green, orange (I can live without the most accurate secondaries here)
   
5. Reducing stress (HaHa) over correct color mixing. Focusing on values only (Hee Hee).
   

Here are the choices. I am also attaching the colors chart for reference:

1. White: Titanium White. I cannot change this. Lightest color
2. Yellow: My choice is Naples yellow as it is lighter than other muted yellows. Not sure about how light Raw Sienna is.
   
3. Red: This is where I am getting stuck. I need a muted red that can influence other colors. Both Venetian and Indian red or orangy. So not a good choice. Shall I go with Crimson Lake (slightly violet mixed crimson; using this in my small plein air paintings; oranges not bright even with cad lemon) or the Light Red? It shows that Light Red is dark enough but not totally blueish on the tube below (color should be darker than what appears on the tube). I feel that Naples yellow has enough yellow in it to produce a decent orange with this.
4. 
5. Blue: My choice is Payne's Grey due to blue undertone. Other options being ivory black and indigo (used this earlier; almost like black but very powerful)
6. Brown (Warm darker orange): Is there any need of this here? I am discarding it. I can mix something similar. I don't even use it while following DMP color method.
   

Richard_P

Light red mixed with a small amount of Magenta or Mauve?
(You already have a mixed colour with Payne's Grey..)

Martin_J_Crane

Have you considered yellow ochre instead of naples yellow?  I consider naples yellow almost a very warm white, at least the ones that I have.  You could approximate a naples yellow with your titanium white and a yellow ochre, which is pretty muted, but it might be hard to avoid chalky yellows using only naples yellow.

Kaustav

@Richard_P Thanks, so you're telling me to use light red. That's ok with me. I won't mix anything as I don't want to be too concerned about a perfect violet or purple. If it feels like violet then it is ok for me.

Frankly, I don't like that Crimson Lake colors as single red. it does a fair job but oranges are boring even with a color like cad lemon. It gets added to a 12 color set as a cooler red with an additional warm red (split primary). That's how I got it three years ago.

Richard_P

That colour chart looks a little odd too though. Normally Indian Red is the bluer version compared to Venetian Red, English Red, Light Red, etc..

Kaustav

Martin_J_Crane said:

Have you considered yellow ochre instead of naples yellow?  I consider naples yellow almost a very warm white, at least the ones that I have.  You could approximate a naples yellow with your titanium white and a yellow ochre, which is pretty muted, but it might be hard to avoid chalky yellows using only naples yellow.

@Martin_J_Crane Thanks. I use yellow ochre when I use Zorn palette. It is a great color no doubt. Powerful, opaque. But after a point when the yellow needs to be very pale it becomes slightly pink in tone due to the red in yellow ochre. I will check the actual color of Naples yellow inside the tube. If it is totally pale then I have to go with yellow ocher anyway, which I already have.

Any thoughts on the choices of muted red and blue? @Richard_P recommends to go with light red. Looking at the tube print it doesn't look that light, which is to my advantage.

Kaustav

Richard_P said:

That colour chart looks a little odd too though. Normally Indian Red is the bluer version compared to Venetian Red, English Red, Light Red, etc..

Yes, I got discouraged by that too. Generally it is thought as slightly bluer than Venetian red. Here are some of the photos on acrylic and poster color. it is definitely not blueish.


Photos are never perfect. But here is another sample of light red. I guess this will create both muted violets and oranges. Plus I don't want the colors to be too perfect here. What do you say, this will work?

Richard_P

Found this with Google:

Richard_P

And this:

Kaustav

@Richard_P many thanks Richard. It seems Terra Rossa is similar to that Light Red. Terra Rossa can create good violets and muted oranges. Light Red is not as warm as Terra Rossa and it is a good thing for me. Ok. I will go with it When I try this palette. Thanks very much for your inputs Richard.

KRYS

Kaustav said:

Hi,

I have been thinking of a very muted color palette for some time; like a muted DMP palette. I have made a few choices below. Need confirmation/suggestions on those choices. Like Zorn Palette, these colors won't produce most accurate results but interesting effects. Basic features behind the color palette are:

1. Colors are commonly available, mostly series 1-2 colors. No fancy ones
2. The paintings will be somewhat muted
3. I can lighten the colors upto white and darken the colors down to black. No change here
   
4. I can use colors that can be identified as red, blue, yellow and mixed ones purple, green, orange (I can live without the most accurate secondaries here)
   
5. Reducing stress (HaHa) over correct color mixing. Focusing on values only (Hee Hee).
   

Here are the choices. I am also attaching the colors chart for reference:

1. White: Titanium White. I cannot change this. Lightest color
2. Yellow: My choice is Naples yellow as it is lighter than other muted yellows. Not sure about how light Raw Sienna is.
   
3. Red: This is where I am getting stuck. I need a muted red that can influence other colors. Both Venetian and Indian red or orangy. So not a good choice. Shall I go with Crimson Lake (slightly violet mixed crimson; using this in my small plein air paintings; oranges not bright even with cad lemon) or the Light Red? It shows that Light Red is dark enough but not totally blueish on the tube below (color should be darker than what appears on the tube). I feel that Naples yellow has enough yellow in it to produce a decent orange with this.
4. 
5. Blue: My choice is Payne's Grey due to blue undertone. Other options being ivory black and indigo (used this earlier; almost like black but very powerful)
6. Brown (Warm darker orange): Is there any need of this here? I am discarding it. I can mix something similar. I don't even use it while following DMP color method.
   

thanks for posting this chart! I used to live in India and those were my colors! I remember using alizarine crimson - the pigment was too strong! But camel´s earthly colors are the best!

Kaustav

@KRYS I love that Alizarine crimson. Its very strong. When its strong, you use less Earth colors are really beautiful. They are more beautiful in their watercolor. Burst Sienna is juicy and probably my most favorite (I don't use it now BTW). What I don't like it is the titanium white. Probably they don't add too much zinc white in it, but I feel sometimes that it cannot become that blinding white. All the colors are good for any starting artist.

KRYS

burnt sienna was my favourite! it has wonderful transparency, here in europe I coudn´t find same color! I once tried to paint over alizarine crimson and the color came through under the white, to the surface! I miss olive green and sap green from camel!

Kaustav

@KRYS I have all of these but never used them in two years. Before DMP I was looking into split primaries and now I even gotten rid of the burnt umber. i paint with four colors nowadays. I look at my unused colors and feel like using them but I never find those colors in nature anymore. I got pthalos, sap greens, totally unused!

But I am making different choices now. I use DMP palette, Zorn palette and now thinking about this muted palette too.

KRYS

I spend 8 hours today mixing colors for a new painting!!! never had so much discipline before! I am new to DMP and very excited about this new method.What is Zorn palette?

BOB73

Cobalt blue, yellow ochre, raw sienna, sap green, burnt umber and mars black plus white are what I used to like for earth colors but I also had a bright yellow (like sun flowers) and blood red that I can't remember the names of. Those were acrylics though.

Kaustav

@KRYS Zorn paletter was a point in one of Mark's videos. It is a color palette that was used by Anders Zorn. He used lead white, yellow ochre, vermilion and ivory black. 

Kaustav

@BOB73 I use acrylics and there are a few that come out beautifully. Aqua green, cerulean blue, sienna and cobalt blue are my favorites. But I use acrylics mostly for abstract work.

KRYS

Kaustav said:

@KRYS I have all of these but never used them in two years. Before DMP I was looking into split primaries and now I even gotten rid of the burnt umber. i paint with four colors nowadays. I look at my unused colors and feel like using them but I never find those colors in nature anymore. I got pthalos, sap greens, totally unused!

But I am making different choices now. I use DMP palette, Zorn palette and now thinking about this muted palette too.

good to have many tubes! you never know what you will need in the future!

Kaustav

good to have many tubes! you never know what you will need in the future!

@KRYS well, Mark instructs to use just five colors. I am using not more than four now. I have reduced my palette greatly over the years and gotten rid of the confusion.

KRYS

put confusion in the drawer!

Kaustav

I made sort of a test of the muted palette. Zeroed in on titanium white, yellow ochre, Indian red and Indigo. I opened the tubes of the light red and Indian red. There was very little difference. Indian red is the color of very powerful rust in Camlin. Indigo is like a black with slight blue in it. With a cad red light replacing the Indian red, it will become a modified Zorn palette.

I put my plein air box palette inside this box to keep the paint fresh for a small still life painting that I'm working on. This is DMP palette with small amount of vermilion. 

Bottom lid shows the test results. Section in the middle has the secondary mixes. First lines are for DMP palette. Second is for muted palette.

Richard_P

Those purples, pinks and blues seem more chromatic than I expected from those 4 original colours.

Kaustav

@pinks and blues are from DMP setup. Muted colors are just below the line of  orange green and violets.

Richard_P

Ah got it now

Kaustav

This is what the mixes look like. What it needs is cool red earth. Rust is very orangy and dominant. I will try the light red next time. Violets are definitely there, but it looks like grey in the photo. It's also worth trying Payne's grey. I love this idea.

BOB73

So, What are your primaries here is that raw sienna or Indian red?

Richard_P

From my tests Indian Red when mixed with white is more of a coolish purple red. Mars Violet (or Capuut Mortum) is even more so, though it's a very unsaturated greyish violet and the colour in mass tone is darker then Indian Red or Light Red.

Why did you prefer Yellow Ochre over Naples Yellow?

Richard_P

This is from my testing, although I don't have a professional camera to take the colour measurements it might help:

Kaustav

@Richard_P no for Naples yellow. Yellow ochre is good. 

Richard_P

What pigments are in the Camel Naples Yellow? Wasn't it a good mixer?

Kaustav

Richard_P said:

What pigments are in the Camel Naples Yellow? Wasn't it a good mixer?

Its not that. I have used yellow ochre for years. I know its limitations and advantages. Naples yellow is new to me and when I opened the tube it looked like a very light yellow White. Some international brands also have an orangy one butmost companies  have this pale color. What I needs is a muted yellow not a warm white. 

Kaustav

BOB73 said:

So, What are your primaries here is that raw sienna or Indian red?

Yellow ochre, Indian red (not bluish though), indigo.