It’s become a fall tradition: each year as the leaves begin to change, I revise my autumn foliage palette. I made a 2022 Autumn Palette and a 2023 Fall Foliage Palette, and here’s my latest, inspired by my recent leaf studies!
Paint
Limited Palette Templates
I’m on my limited palette kick after reading Hazel Soan‘s The Art of the Limited Palette, and I have more thoughts!
How do you go about building or choosing a limited palette for a particular painting? It’s easy to default to a primary triad (blue/yellow/red), the most common type of limited palette, but what are the other options? From my observations of Soan’s examples in her book and other sources, I’ve categorized common patterns.
Limited Palette Study: Phthalo Blue RS, Quin Coral, Gold Ochre
After my first limited palette study was on an unusual, almost secondary triad, I went more traditionally primary for one of my favorite subjects: sunset.
What counts as a color for a limited palette?
Here’s a question that was raised for me when reading Hazel Soan‘s The Art of the Limited Palette. The concept of a “limited palette” revolves around counting the colors you use in any given painting. So what counts as a color?
Limited Palette Study: Indanthrone Blue, Rich Green Gold, Transparent Red Oxide
Welcome to a new series where I take a look at a specific limited palette, usually consisting of 3 colors. This is inspired by my newfound interest in limited palettes (after reading Hazel Soan’s book), and also by my need to find a new post series now that I’m no longer doing Color Spotlights because I have tried (almost) every color available to me.
We’re starting with kind of a weird one! Instead of a traditional blue, yellow, and red, this is a blue, green-yellow, and earth orange. I used 3 Daniel Smith colors: Indanthrone Blue (PB60), Rich Green Gold (PY129), and Transparent Red Oxide (PR101).
Artist Palette Profiles: Hazel Soan
As a big-palette enthusiast, I really need practice with limited palettes, which is where Hazel Soan’s 2022 book Art of the Limited Palette comes in. In the book, Soan extols the joys of using a limited palette – how it can make your paintings look more color-rich, less muddy, and more harmonious, while also making your life easier as a painter.
What makes this book convincing is how much I love use of color in Soan’s paintings in the book. Is this because she uses limited palettes, or because she’s generally good at painting? Hard to say, but her limited-palette paintings certainly don’t appear to be limited in hue or value. On the contrary, they seem to glow and vibrate with color!
Finding Lightfast Acrylic Gouache
Recently, I began experimenting with acrylic gouache, which is basically just acrylic paint that dries matte. When I look at ASTM ratings of the lightfastness of paints, they’re often better in acrylic than in watercolor. I suppose it’s because watercolor is so often used in tints, and gum arabic is not a very protective base. … Read more
The Secret of Opus Essential Watercolours
I recently moved to Vancouver, B.C., Canada from the U.S. The local southwest-B.C. chain art store, Opus, carries most of my favorite watercolor paint brands – Holbein, Daniel Smith, Winsor & Newton, Schmincke – but notably absent is my very favorite, Da Vinci. Nor could I find it offered anywhere in the entire country to … Read more
Adventures with Acrylic Gouache!
Well, I got out of the gouache game, but not for long! After moving with only my watercolors, I started to miss having a second medium, especially one that forces me to think differently from watercolor and that has different benefits and challenges. While I love the dreaminess and luminosity of watercolor, some types of … Read more
What’s in my palette? July 2024
I haven’t painted a ton since I moved this summer, but I still found time to make some small palette changes since my pre-move palette check. Generally, when I reached for something two or more times out of my B-team, I thought carefully about pulling it up to A-Team!