The big question in my last palette review was: will I use the “Vancouver colors” Perylene Green, Carbazole Violet, and Quin Burnt Orange?
Answer: yes!
I found even more uses for them than before, including making a lovely kind of dull violet gray with the violet + green.
This is a good color base for distant mountains, a subject that did not come up at all in Boston but is ever-present here.
I will also add Lavender as another color that I find more useful here, for some of the same use cases (e.g. hazy mountain violets) as well as for clouds. When mixed with Payne’s Gray, Lavender creates stormcloud or distant mountain colors.
Acutally, distant mountains often seem to me simultaneously gray, blue, violet, and dark green (especially when covered in fir & spruce trees). So I’ve tried various mixes of those colors.
First, Cerulean + Carbazole Violet + Perylene Green…
The same, but with Cobalt blue instead of Cerulean…
A bluer version with Indanthrone Blue in the blue slot, and Lavender instead of the Carbazole Violet:
I like that the Perylene Green adds those tree-green tones, as well as grayish dullness, while the blues and violets add the haziness and atmospheric perspective. The Indanthrone hue is good, though I sometimes find it too easy to go too dark.
Perylene Green is also convenient for conifers. It’s handy to add Perylene Red to make it even darker and blacker, while keeping that greenish look.
In the painting above, there were also lots of violet flowers for which Dioxazine was a convenient base, though I could have mixed something from Cobalt Blue + Quin Rose, and/or used Lavender for more opacity over the green.
Palette Update
Compared to my last palette update right before I moved, I’ve made these changes:
- Switched back to Phthalo Blue Red Shade from Green Shade. The Red Shade is just perfect for skies and so convenient.
- As a result of this, I also added back in Phthalo Turquoise (though its placement doesn’t fit my usual “earths on the bottom” scheme).
- Added Lavender.
- Added Indian Red, though I may reverse this as I haven’t used it much.
- Dropped Payne’s Gray, and made Cobalt + MANS normal-size.