Three Color Palette

5" x 7" Oil on Panel

It isn't shaping up to be much of a white Christmas around here, at least not here in the valley. The general appearance of the landscape is of various grays and tans. Nothing in the way of the brighter colors of summer or fall. The first image in this post is of a little painting made on a mostly sunny day in late November. It shows a little more chroma than the next image, which was painted on a very overcast day and is much more subdued.

5" x 7" Oil on Panel

For these paintings, instead of laying out the usual split primary palette, I thought I'd try a very limited palette of just three colors, plus white. Those colors were yellow, red, and blue.

The third picture shows the colors laid out on the palette board in the 5 x 7 pochade box. Although the painting shown at the top of this post was painted on a traditional white panel, the second painting was made on a dark panel.

Here's the colors used for these paintings:

1. Titanium White
2. Cadmium Yellow
3. Permanent Alizarin Crimson
4. Ultramarine Blue
5. Mix of Alizarin and Ultramarine, with a touch of yellow.

Cadmium lemon yellow would have provided cleaner, brighter mixes than cadmium yellow, but I wanted the dirtier mixing qualities of cad. yellow for more subdued colors. Perhaps earth tone paints such as yellow ocher and transparent red oxide could be used in place of more expensive cadmium and Anthraquinone (perm. alizarin crimson), but there's no room in the little paintbox for two more tubes of paint!

Here's the second painting still in the box:

As I was finishing up the painting shown directly above, someone with the COOLEST pickup drove into the parking area where I was set up. I asked him if I could photograph his truck and he happily agreed.

This restored model T pickup would be so much fun to go painting in, even if it would probably also be necessary to bring along tools and spare parts! It's almost Christmas. Maybe I could write Santa and ask for one...

Merry Christmas everyone, Model T or no.