The Contemporary Outdoor Painters' Palette...

On April 10th, I will be lecturing on the outdoor palette at the 2nd Annual Plein Air Convention & Expo. 

And besides talking about my palette, I thought it would be a hoot to survey what colors other plein air painters use outdoors. For the most part, I use a set of primary and secondaries, warm and cool versions of each, plus a few earth colors as shortcuts. I tend to mix down unwanted intensity using complementary hues, or by sometimes working a little burnt umber into a color to lower its value and saturation as Sargent, Sorolla, and Zorn did – although admittedly, they were far better at it than I. (ha!) 

Minor note: The color sphere illustrations you see in this post will appear in my upcoming book, "Color and the Direct Method of Oil Painting". In the chapter on mixing, they explain how to use complementary and related hues to modify value and chroma. I will announce the availability of the book after the Plein Air Convention...)

And speaking of the convention... If you are going to be there and want to hear my talk you should pre-register for it asap. Don't wait. I have been told the room is filling up and may max out. I will talk about these palettes, what they can do in the field, and I will also demo how to mix with them. Plus there will be a Q & A session so you can follow up with specific questions. My lecture will be at 9:30 am on the first day.

After completing this survey I was surprised to discover how similar everyone's palette was, and how similar we used them. Surprised because I chose well-known plein air painters from all over the country – even reaching out to Europe to Marc Dalessio – artists who have different looks to their paintings. (Links to their websites have been provided below.) From the extended conversations we had on the phone it was clear everyone relies on the warm and cool theory of color mixing.

With few exceptions (Jill Carver, Jean LeGassick, and myself), the artists I spoke to tended to put more colors on their palette when in the studio. Perhaps it is because they have more time to deliberate indoors or maybe it has something to do with working at a larger scale. In any case, when a painter first goes outside he or she quickly learns their subject is in a constant state of flux. There is no time to mess around and every fifteen minutes it becomes a new painting. (Frustrating, isn't it?) At most, we have a window of a few hours to create a masterpiece, and because of that the best outdoor work tends to embrace expediency. So perhaps that is why all the artist converged on a similar set of hues. Because in capable and experienced hands, the mixing of intense warm and cool primaries can convincingly express the effects of temperature and light.

Side Bar: The Limited Palette It should be noted many plein air painters purposely work with a reduced palette; which means two or three hues plus a white, and the results can be spectacular. The paintings of Kevin McPherson and Lori Putnam come to mind, with many more artists worthy of mention. But there are physical limits to what subtractive mixing can encompass and such limits make it impossible to represent the entire spectrum of light. So if any readers out there prefer a limited palette out of choice or virtue, I salute you. I paint with a reduced palette too now and then, like when I went to Spain and Morocco last October. It helped to lighten the load. And also, back in the mid-90s, I painted four years with only Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow Light, Ultramarine Blue, and Titanium White. So I appreciate the appeal of a limited palette.

If anything may be generalized about the contemporary outdoor palette, it is likely to contain both warm and cool versions of the primaries and secondaries. Which makes it similar to the palettes used by a lot of 19th century Impressionists. With exceptions, of course. Today, modern synthetics such as Indian Yellow, Transparent Oxide Red, and the super saturated Pthalos – which can become the crack-cocaine of the plein air enthusiast – often usurp their 19th century counterparts. But the idea of mixing with warm and cool primaries still holds.

The findings of my informal survey are offered below. The information is only accurate as of March, 2013. The palettes you see here may change over time because few painters hold to the same set of color over a lifetime.

And finally, thank you to all the artists who participated! Any mistakes or misrepresentations found in this post are mine and mine only. Caused by my misunderstanding or bad typing while on the phone. Egregious errors will be corrected, if requested.

Thomas

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Ned Mueller
Website: http://www.nedmueller.com



Palette:
Cadmium Yellow Lemon
Cadmium Yellow Light
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Red Light
Alizarin Crimson
Transparent Brown Oxide
Chromium Oxide Green
Viridian
Cobalt Blue
French Ultramarine Blue
Ivory Black
Titanium White

Extras colors for travel, primarily reserved for colorful indigenous apparel:
Permanent Red Rose
Pthalo Green

A few tips and advice and advice from the artist:

• Mix your earth colors
• Make most greens using black + orange or black + yellow
• Black can used as a color, particularly in making greens, and beautiful subtle violets and such
• Adding white to a hue will cool the temperature
• Too much white will make a color turn pasty
• Set the middle values and darks dark enough to avoid pasty lights
• Sometimes works on a white ground, sometimes works on a tinted ground
• Anticipate how a white canvas makes your initial values appear darker than they actually are
• Mix on a neutral gray palette, about 10 - 20 percent gray.
• When toning a canvas, use a fairly neutral color -- Ned often uses Cadmium Red + a blue

Prefers to work on an oil ground, often pre-tinting it with a color before applying to canvas

Final words of advice:
Have fun, and keep a sense of humor…


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Artist: Jennifer McChristian
Website: http://jennifermcchristian.com



Palette:

Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Red Medium
Thalo Red Rose
Alizarin Permanent
Ultramarine Blue
Yellow Ochre
Indian Yellow
Titanium/Zinc White

A few tips and advice from the artist:

• All greens are mixed
• Keep a gray pile going
• Mix complementary hues together to create neutrals and earth colors
• Average out the value and color in an area during block-in
• Reduce the form of your subject down to four values
• Add reflected color (or bounced light) after block-in
• Work from large to smaller shapes

In terms of mixing, considered this to be the order of importance...

#1 Value, #2 Temperature (or Hue), #3 Intensity

Extra:
Establish shadow pattern immediately and work from dark to light as much as possible.


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Artist: Jesse Powell
Website: http://jessepowellfineart.com



Palette – Yes, all of these are out at the same time:
Cadmium Lemon Yellow
Cadmium Yellow Deep
Yellow Ochre
Raw Sienna
Cadmium Red Light
Alizarin Crimson
Rose Madder/Quinacridone
Raw Umber
Iron Oxide Red
Ultramarine Blue
Cobalt Blue
Viridian
Terre Vert
Sap Green
Titanium White

A few tips and advice from the artist:

• Use a gray pile
• Mix on a medium gray glass palette (Value 5 or 50%)
• Think in terms of warm and cool
• Mix most of your color from primaries and secondaries
• Mix most colors to their final appearance on the palette, w/exception of color bands in the sky being cross-blended on the canvas
• Add the impasto and bravura brushwork at the end

Recommends lining up 20 paintings to see if a single color appears too often. If so, take the color off the palette for a while.


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Marc Dalessio
Website: http://www.marcdalessio.com



Palette (remarks in brackets are by Marc):
Lead or Titanium white [I prefer the handling of lead, but I’m currently using titanium for health and environmental reasons]
Cadmium Yellow [from Michael Harding or I’ll grind my own Cad Yellow light from Zecchi]
Zecchi’s Roman Ochre
Vermilion [hand-ground from Doak. Though I sometimes use the Zecchi one outdoors]
Cadmium Red Medium [either Harding’s or hand-ground from Zecchi]
Alizarin [either hand-ground, or I was using Doak’s Florentine Lake for a while too]
Cerulean Blue [$70 a pop from Old Holland, or hand-ground if I need a lot for a large painting]
Ultramarine Deep [from Old Holland]
Manganese Blue [from Old Holland]
Cobalt Blue [either Old Holland or Harding]

Additional:

• The palette I started with included Naples Yellow, an earth red (Pozzuoli, English…etc), and Veridian. I have also used high chroma oranges and purples for specific projects with orange trees, irises and such.

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Jill Carver
Website: http://jillcarver.com

Palette:
Cadmium Yellow Light
Cadmium Orange or Yellow Ochre, and sometime both
Cadmium Red Light
Alizarin Crimson
Cobalt Blue
Ultramarine Blue
Titanium/Zinc White

A few tips and advice from the artist:

• All greens are mixed
• Keep a gray pile going
• Use a little Pthalo green mixed with Alizarin to create a cool gray for tin roofs. But avoid using Pthalo in a green mix.
• First try to use the innate value of your hues before mixing white into them.
• Consider the effect of a color's opacity or transparency when mixing.

Extra:
Uses Open Box M side shelf to increase her mixing area (visible in the photo above). Quarantines her whites and lighter values on the side palette to keep them clean.


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Marc Hansen
Website: http://marchansonart.com

Palette:
Titanium White [Utrecht mixed 50/50 w W&N Griffin Alkyd White]
Cadmium Yellow Light
Cadmium Yellow Deep [Rembrandt]
Cadmium Red Light
Venetian Red, Terra Rosa, English Light Red [a warmer version of terra rosa]
Alizarin Crimson
Transparent Oxide Red [Rembrandt warmish]
Ultramarine Blue [Deep version)
Colbalt Blue
Viridian
Yellow Ochre [lighter version of an ochre]

Fill-in colors:
Indian Yellow
Quinacridone Rose

A few tips and advice from the artist:

• Use Cool and warm pairing of hues when mixing
• Mix neutrals and tertiaries using complements
• Make grays with viridian and alizarin and white, then modified them with other hues
• Ultramarine and ochre is a good start to a green
• Use thin washes for your sketch or block in
• Sketch color should be determined by situation, meaning, are the darks you see warm or cool?
• Use 3 or 4 shapes to sketch in initially, keeping them in the light value range, then add darks before working up to lighter passages.
• Shoot for the correct hue, value, and chroma on your first attempt, then correct the color as needed (the direct method of oil painting)
• Mix the color you need on the palette before applying it to the canvas

Extra:
Prefers to paint on titanium/oil ground




_______________

Jean LeGassick
Website: http://jeanlegassick.com

Palette (The following are the colors Jean has used for years):
Cadmium Lemon Yellow
Hansa Yellow Orange (a deep yellow)
Quinacridone Red
Pthalo Blue
Pthalo Green (sometimes, but with reserve)
Zinc White

However, Jean is lately been working with what she calls a modified Zorn palette, which is what is pictured above:
Yellow Ochre
Alizarin Crimson Permanent
Pthalo Blue
Ivory Black
Zinc White

From Jean: 

"This palette also includes my secondaries pre-mixed from a limited palette of yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, pthalo blue, and black. Also I want to show the paint in the divided tray I usually use. (So I may transfer the paint from one pochade to another, or back to my studio palette, or, it can be easily wrapped and stored in the refrigerator if I know I won't be painting for several days.)"

A few tips and advice from the artist:

• Change the colors on your palette now and then to prevent your mixing from becoming formulaic – it will also make you look for accurate color
• Consider starting a painting in the field and completing it in the studio (Jean says she often works a plein air painting to an 85% finish, then completes it indoors)
• If a certain painting requires an extra color use it regardless of your working palette.
• Mix your color with a palette knife to keep it clean
• Paint with a palette knife as well as a brush
• A palette knife discourages nit-picking or investing too much detail in a painting

Extras:
Paints with water-mincible oils for health reasons and because of how they handle with a knife.

Likes to use Zinc White, for its transparency, its stiffness, and the fact that it takes longer to dry.

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Colin Page
Website: http://www.colinpagepaintings.com

Palette:
Cadmium Yellow Lemon
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Orange (Considers this a 'cheater' color, meaning, a shortcut)
Cadmium Red Light or Medium (does not use much of this hue)
Quinacridone Red
Alizarin Yellow (Instead of Yellow Ochre) (Williamsburg)
Windsor Blue Green Shade
Ultramarine Blue
Burnt Sienna

A few tips and advice from the artist:

• Mix your greens
• Keep a gray pile going
• Use complements to create neutrals and earth colors

Extra:
Enjoys painting backlit subjects and will accentuate temperature contrasts for effect

Often uses Quinacridone + Ultramarine to establish shadows

Arranges his cool hues on left side of palette, and warm hues along the top, with white in a corner.


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Ray Roberts
Website: http://www.krollroberts.com

Palette:
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Red Light
Alizarin Crimson of some other Rose Color
Dioxazine Purple
Ultramarine Blue
Cobalt Blue [on occasion]
Cerulean Blue Hue
Viridian
Sap Green
Thalo Yellow Green [Utrecht or Grumbacher]
Titanium White

A few tips and advice and advice from the artist:

• Use complementary hues to create your neutrals
• Also use split complements to make neutrals as well, (for example, Cad Orange + Dioxazine Purple, or, Cad Orange + Viridian)
• Try to reserve the white of the ground for lighter hues
• Sketch in with a warm neutral hue

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Stephen Griffin:
Website: http://www.mcbridegallery.com/griffin.html

Palette:
Cadmium Lemon Yellow or Light
Cadmium Yellow Deep
Cadmium Orange/Scarlet
Cadmium Red Deep
Ultramarine Blue
Cerulean Blue
Yellow Ochre (used as a shortcut for mixing)
Terra Rosa (Shortcut)
Titanium White

A few tips and advice and advice from the artist:

• Mix with Warm and Cool Primaries
• Use complementary mixing to create neutrals
• Paint on a white ground. The white permits keying the painting towards any hue.
• Try to start with high chroma and keep it high as possible.
• Terra Rosa + Ultramarine mixed together are good for your sketch in

Extra:
Stephen's palette and painting method is loosely based off of Emile Gruppe's palette, via his son, Robert C. Gruppe. It is also influenced by the theories and methods of Charles Hawthorne as well.

Every now and then Steve goes back to painting using only Cadmium Red Deep, Cad Yellow Light, Ultramarine Blue to remind himself to be attentive to the color he sees.


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Thomas Jefferson Kitts
http://www.thomaskitts.com

Palette (not all of these colors are put out on the palette every painting session but they are always in the painting kit):
Cadmium Yellow Light or Lemon [Often, but not shown here]
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Red Medium [Often, but not shown here]
Cadmium Red Deep
Alizarin Crimson, Anthraquinone, or Quinacridone [I lean towards Anthraquinone these days]
Cobalt Violet or Dioxazine Purple [Not shown, but usually Cobalt Violet]
Ultramarine Blue
Cerulean Hue or Manganese Blue Hue
Viridian
Yellow Ochre

Burnt Umber

Lead or Titanium White


A few tips and advice and advice from the artist:

• Keep the white out of your darks and use as little of it as possible in the mid-values; try to use the equivalent value of your hues before adding white
• Reserve the white or unpainted area of your canvas for the lighter values
• Mix neutrals and earth colors with complementary hues
• Keep a gray pile going
• Don't over mix on your palette; allow flecks of purer color to remain
• Push pure color into dead areas on the canvas if needed, again, don't over mix
• After block-in, work from dark to light and thin to thick, as much as possible
• Be prepared to scrape down and area and re-paint it again
• Save the bravura brushwork for the end
• Keep things simple in the field and paint directly; don't hope indoor work will save a plein air painting

Extra:
My present plein air palette is very similar to the outdoor palette used by Sorolla, as far as it can be determined. Bu I am still working out how the h*ll he mixed with it...