Cadmium Yellow Light

Posted in art supplies on 07/14/2009 11:49 pm by admin

Cadmium Yellow Light

painters - what colors do you use on your palette? What medium do you use (oils)?

I am a beginning oil painter. I am wondering what colors painters use for their palette? Do you change colors for a noon type lighting vs evening lighting? Different colors for landscapes vs. still life, vs portraits?

So far I have been using ultramarine blue, white, sap green, cadmium red, burnt umber and cadmium yellow. Anything wrong with that?

I have been using mineral spirits and linseed oil so far, but I want to try a different oil because linseed yellows. How is poppyseed oil? Walnut oil? What do you like?

Thank you! I am really liking this hobby. I get better every painting.
I like oil painting because you can work with it longer than acrylics, I do a sorta realistic style, I really just need technical advice.

You are doing yourself a favor by starting with a limited palette, because it leads to a unified feel in the finished image.

There are a few limited palettes that teachers who teach beginning painting classes advocate, but it is really OK to just try things out and see what works best for you.

Here are a few classic palettes:

The "dead palette" of burnt sienna, burnt umber, yellow ochre, black and white. This is an old masters type of palette such as you would see with Rembrandt or Caravaggio. Blue tones are achieved by pure mixtures of white and black, which in contrast to browner mixtures will appear cooler and therefore bluish.

Warm/Cool palette of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna and white, or replace the sienna with burnt umber. This gives you a chance to push the value contrasts and warm/cool contrasts of a picture without having to wrestle too much with color. The ultra/umber/white palette also leads to a beautiful tonal look.

Triadic palette which is very close to what you are using now: red, yellow, blue, and white. Purists will say that you can mix the umber and sap shades from that basic palette.

Split Triadic Palette of warm and cool shades of red, yellow, and blue plus white, which leads to a very vibrant effect. A popular split triadic palette is alizarin crimson/cadmium red light, yellow ochre/cadmium yellow light, and ultramarine blue/cobalt blue, plus white.

Complementary palette, which is rather freaky at first but what you learn is that you can mix a limitless range of chromatic grays. It sounds as though you should come up with a garish result, but once you get the hang of the range of mixes it will be a softer look. I think this is an approach best suited for study; I don't work this way in my studio as a rule. But as you learn there are points of color theory worth learning with this approach. A red/green palette like cad red light/alizarin crimson and permanent green light/sap green or viridian with white, or similar breakouts of violet/yellow or orange/blue (which takes you back to the sienna/blue palette from before.)

A good limited palette for portrait work is mars violet, terra rosa, french vermilion, yellow ochre, naples yellow, ultramarine blue and cremnitz white.

A good limited palette for landscape work is cadmium red light, cadmium yellow light, yellow ochre, ultramarine blue and white, with permanent green light and sap green if you have greenery in the image.

Whites can affect how a color mixes. And there is a difference between French Ultramarine and Ultramarine Blue. French is more violet-ey and regular ultramarine has a greener undertone to it. Lately I have been using French a lot more often, because I am finding myself dissatisfied with the greenish undertone, but it has its uses.

As an experiment, get some cremnitz white, titanium white, and zinc white, and then get some French ultramarine and regular ultramarine, and run the gamut of mixtures of blues and whites. You will get a different blue if you mix U. Blue with cremnitz than if you mixed it with titanium.

Cremnitz is a weak tinting strength and so is good for gradual changes. It also is a warmer white. Titanium white has a very strong tinting strength and will lighten --- and cool --- tones very quickly, so learn to work with T. White judiciously and be careful not to let your paintings get too bleached looking.

A good way to avoid that problem is to begin with the darkest areas of your painting and work for a while without using any white at all, only introducing it when you are ready to work into the lighter areas.

A deep contrast can make a dramatic image and one that has an assertive punch. Paintings whose value structure is less differentiated tend to look more amateurish.

Probably way more than you wanted to know, but I enjoy playing with different palettes and seeing what speaks to me. Every painter eventually develops their favorite palettes, and it sounds like you have got one that is working well for you.

Keep on going and good luck!

2008 Yamaha R6 Cadmium Yellow