As you guys know, I love color. Wonderful minimalist palettes, saturated landscapes, monochromatic studies, nailed-it gray, moody night paintings, color does so much! Color sets the mood and creates a narrative. I personally work with a lot of saturated colors because I find it invigorating. I used to work with a reduced palette mixing most of my colors from about five tubes. After a while, I wanted to branch out and play with some of the really great colors that are being produced. Here are my fav paint colors right now!
I'm starting with the heavyweight that has always been there for me creating beautiful hues-Ultramarine Blue! When I had a reduced palette, Ultramarine Blue was a huge part of it. It is so versatile! Add a small dip of titanium white and you get a beautiful blue that sings! Use it straight up to have a rich dark value. Mix it with yellow to create great greens! Ultramarine will always be a staple of mine.
Coming in second is Quinacridone Magenta not to be confused with quinacridone violet. (Sorry Violet). I love Quinacridone Magenta for its ability to have a rich pink color that can easily be softened with a touch of white. Quinacridone violet always leaves me feeling a little sad. When you add a small amount of white to Quinacridone Violet, it goes too cool for me. Quinacridone Magenta, on the other hand, will turn into a beautiful warm pink when a touch of white is added.
Onto the greens, I have a thing for green paint. I have been painting plants, grass, and trees off and on for 15 years and really love exploring various greens. Here are two that I constantly have on my palette- Permanent Green Light and Radiant Green. Permanent Green Light was the pigment I had been looking for because it had the yellow pop that I hadn't been able to mix myself. Radiant Green is a current obsession. It has a mint feel to it but you can easily adjust the temperature.
Another all-time fave, Ivory Black! Once I accidentally bought and used Mars Black and the warm tones were not what I was looking for. Ivory black is a wonderful cool black that I always have on my palette.
Ok and now my all-time fav as in, I am obsessed with this color and how you can use it, Dioxadine Purple! I mean just look at tint, tone, and shade on this!? I use it to paint so many different areas such as night skies, skin tones, and trees and that is why I love it! It can be used to paint the atmosphere, flesh, and foliage! Now, of course, you can use any color and paint all of these but Dioxadine just makes sense in these areas and can be an eye-grabbing jewel of a color or sit on the planes of the body as a cool flesh tone. Amazing!
These are colors that I have on my palette right now but I have to be honest, there are many other colors I love! Ochre, my cadmiums, so many wonderful colors. What about you? What are your favorites? I can't wait to hear what they are and if I haven't tried them out, I will add them to my "try them soon" list! Have a great time in the studio!
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