Eight Proven Color Palettes to Mix All of Nature's Colors

Another new month means another new assignment from Kevin Macpherson, my mentor in the ProDJ Program -- so I thought I'd sum up a little of what he's telling us about out new assignment on "Color".

"We had touched on color through many of the past assignments but we have not focused on this aspect until later in the course for good reason.  In spite of colors' acclaim in the creation of great artwork it is really not one of the key fundamentals.  Color lives within the basic structure of shape and value and without a firm grounding in shape and value color does not count.  A firm understanding of the basic fundamentals of shape and value grants the artist the most freedom with color.  Any color will be tolerable in the correct value family."

"Where is the darkest dark?  Where is the lightest light?  Where are the darkest green, the lightest green, the most pure and the most muted?  How do all the greens vary in value, intensity and temperature?  We must not spend our extremes in the wrong place.  We feel we need more tube colors because we really do not compare the relationships of each color note.  All the tube colors in the world will not help if we are not comparing constantly.  Do the same comparison for each color family for success."

"We cannot mix all the colors of nature.  Get over it.  We cannot even buy all the pigments possible to get close to it.  But we can mix the relationship of nature's colors and tie them together for a unified satisfactory arrangement that is much more enjoyable than a cacophony of color."

Our primary concern for this month is using a "limited palette."  He recommends eight proven palettes for us to choose from - every painting we need to decide which of the eight we will be using.  He says "don't look for scenes to fit the colors.  Make the colors fit any scene."

l.  Cadmium Orange, Dioxazine Purple, Phthalo Green
2.  Cadmium Yellow Light, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue
3.  Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Chromatic Black
4.  Yellow Ochre, Quinacridone Red, Emeraldl Green
5.  Yellow Ochre, Burnt sienna, Ultramarine Blue
6.  Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Red Light, Phthalo Green
7.  Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Red Light, Ultramarine Blue
8.  Cadmium Yellow Light, Quinacridone Red, Dioxazine Purple