What palette to use?

This is a long debate that has -you guessed- no ultimate answer. Each painter has their own “best palette” or “favorite palette”. Or in some cases, multiple different favorite palettes.

My approach has been really to keep it simple.

Especially if you are a beginner, you must start simple. There is no point at all in getting 20 different paint tubes. Here’s a spoiler: No matter how many tubes and grades and shades of colors you have, you will still need to mix your colors. So what’s the point then?

My recommendation is to start with a very small and reduced palette. Now in order to do this, there are a few options that I’ll list:

1. Primary colors palette. A palette with ultramarine blue, cadmium red medium, yellow lemon light, titanium white. You can essentially do any color with this

2. Mark Carden palette. Mark suggests a variation of these colors, adding brown to the palette. I think the addition of brown is great and a shortcut to get some earthy colors.

3. Zorn palette. Especially if you are interested in portraits, this palette is magnificent. It has yellow ocher, ivory black, cadmium red and titanium white. I feel strongly that this palette is the best especially for beginner and intermediate painters. You can do all skin tones with it and because it’s limited, you don’t go crazy trying to find the tones you need.

4. Expanded primary colors palette. This expands the primaries essentially by having temperature added to it, adding cold/warm variations. So it’s ivory black, ultramarine blue (cold), cerulean blue (warm), alizarin crimson (cold), cadmium red medium (warm), yellow ochre (cold), yellow lemon light (warm), titanium white. Lastly, adding one earthy tone with burned sienna, as a shortcut. This was my palette when I first started and I still use it very often. I think this palette hits the sweet spot of (a) giving you virtually access to all colors and (b) being decently limited with only 9 colors.

I would also add, don’t get stressed out about finding your palette quickly. You have to try many until you find what you are comfortable with. I.e. I tend to use the expanded primary for still life and landscapes, while using the Zorn for portraits. 

If there is a specific color that is hard to get with one of the palettes (i.e. trying to get a very chromatic turquoise with the Zorn palette) then I may get that color separately or add additional colors to mix it. If you are painting landscapes, you may want to add cold and warm greens for your grass and trees.

So nothing is set in stone and you can add and remove as you please.

There are plenty of painters I love who have more complex palettes. They have their reasons. I have not yet found a reason to have more colors than that. If you don’t know why you have a specific color in your palette…then take it out. Keep it as simple as possible.

Takeaways:

1. There are multiple (infinite) palettes out there. They are correct

2. Try to keep it simple, don’t add colors you don’t understand or that you don’t use

3. Palettes are not dogmatic. Can be altered. Alter them they way you want / need

4. Try multiple palettes and try to understand what you like or dislike about them

5. Lastly, when trying, try for some time. Trying 10 palettes with 10 paintings won’t probably help you much. You need to do a few paintings with one palette to get a sense of what it is working with. Then you can switch to another one. Allow enough time for a palette to mature in your practice.

Thanks for reading,

Keep going.