Limited palette: Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine blue, and Indian Yellow

This is another limited palette painting. It's very very fun to do many and line them all up and see how similar and different they appear all at the same time. In the beginning during the "lay in" stage it's easy to say oh I'll never get the colors to pop or stand out but the longer you create you "soup" (the combination of colors you're mixing on your palette) the more the tiniest differentiations start to appear and add definition to your canvas. I am now convinced that this is the way to learn. 1. You realize that a painting is about the canvas not the image or the photograph 2 You are striving toward harmony 3. You are actively experiencing at a very simple and effective level the differences between darker or lighter and the other important question, warmer or cooler, or brighter or duller. Your mind is not confounded but a vast array of colors with so many different values. If you must add more colors, wait until you've laid in the main idea to your satisfaction and use the 4th color carefully to enhance.

The Limited Palette always Impresses

I picked up a photo of a young woman I had painted once upon a time and thought I'd like to explore it further. I've always absolutely loved the artwork of Toulouse Lautrec. The subject matter of the dancing show girls, the night life of the French bougousie, and the dedication of the young toulouse have always intrigued me. Looking closely at it I know he uses a lot of yellow and alizarin crimson and maybe some blue, maybe some green. So I put blobs of alizarin, Indian yellow and Ultramarine blue along with titanium white on my glass palette and using a small brush and the red I sketched her in. THis is the final result. After a while I felt like I was simply doing a value study but the limitations of color make it much easier than being overwhelmed with a full palette. It facilitated the ease of asking the simple questions that propel us around the canvas. Is this space lighter or darker, warmer or cooler. Easy peasy. I am going to continue this little exercise for a while. I find that limited palettes are kinder to the eye and the harmony is automatic.