Oil Painting | How to Paint | How To Arrange Colors on a Palette

MATERIAL AND EQUIPMENT FOR OIL PAINTING

ARRANGING THE COLORS ON THE PALETTE

The purpose of arranging the colors on your palette in a systematic way is to save time. There should be no fumbling around to find a color, for all your attention should be concentrated on painting the subject before you.

If the colors are always kept in the same order on your palette, your brush will instinctively go to the desired color.

There are several ways of setting up a palette. The colors can be arranged from warm to cool or vice-versa. They can be placed just along the far edge of the palette or form an inverted L by also being placed along the left edge. The oil cups - one for the painting medium, the other for turpentine - can be fastened to the right side by themselves, so that they are quickly accessible.

Do not skimp on the color you squeeze from a tube. Too small an amount of each color on the palette leads to thin painting, If you paint on consecutive days, most of the paint will remain workable. If any color starts drying out, scrape it off with the palette knife and replace it with fresh color.

Unused color can be placed in a dish and covered with water, which will keep it fresh for several days. When you are ready to re-use it, pour the water from the dish and transfer the paint back to the palette with a knife. Any layer of skin that may have formed can easily be removed and the paint will be workable again.

A simple and practical palette arrangement, designed for maximum ease of use.

THE STUDY OF COLOR

Early attempts to paint from nature often result in a literal, almost crude, interpretation of the color that is seen.

The sky is blue, the earth brown, the trees seem a definite green. It is not until you really start observing the subtleties of color that you begin to avoid the obvious. You discover that the sky can vary from light gray to greenish brown. The brown earth becomes a pinkish violet or even a vivid orange, according to the light from the sky. Subtle blues, violets, and browns can be detected in what first appeared to be a cluster of monotonous green trees. As you progress you learn to become more selective. You emphasize colors that produce a more harmonious effect and subdue discordant notes or eliminate them entirely.

If you were born with a sense of color you are one of the fortunate few. Most people constantly have to return to nature, studying the effect of one color related to another, always working to seek color harmonies and new color schemes. Then, as the eye for color develops, the painter's work becomes more distinctive.

In the actual painting of a subject we learn that a restricted palette insures better color harmony, that the grays enhance the subject, and that restraint is necessary when using the more brilliant colors.

Study the original paintings or good color reproductions of the old and modern masters. Notice how some painters actually used very few colors, yet you are not conscious of any lack of color in their paintings; others seem to have run the gamut of every color, but they also produced beautiful harmonies.

You may want to study the scientific color theories of the authorities on the subject. Many books are available but before you become too involved with theory remember that you are interested not only in the visual effect of color and its emotional impact, but also in how color creates form and how form is affected by its surrounding color.

Technically, any color can be made by mixing the primary colors, yellow, red, and blue. Each of the secondary colors, orange, violet, and green, is made by mixing the two primary colors on either side of it.

Mixing primary and secondary colors produces the intermediate colors, yellow-orange, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, and yellow-green.

The complement of each color is directly opposite it.

Mixtures of complements make grays.

Colors containing a greater proportion of yellow or red are considered "warm." Conversely, colors containing a greater proportion of blue are "cool."

Continue to More About Color Mixing

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Material & Equipment for Oil Painting
> Introduction & Colors
> Working with Canvases
> More about Using Canvases
> The Paint Box and Palette
> The Palette Knife and Other Tools
> Oil Painting Brushes & the Home Studio
> Care of Equipment & Brush Handling
> More about Brush Handling
> Arranging Colors on the Palette & Color Mixing
> More About Color Mixing
> Color Mixing Exercises