Leisure Painter - UK (2019-06)

http://www.painters-online.co.uk JUNE 2019 43

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Many years ago, I made a dozen such charts for each colour on my palette following

Richard Schmid’s methods in his book, Alla Prima: Everything I know about Painting.

For instance, ultramarine blue, top left, is mixed with white gradually to become lighter

for five steps down to form a vertical row. This is repeated with every other colour on

the palette. The next row is mixed with lemon yellow, the next with cadmium yellow

and so forth until you exhaust all the colours on your palette. The charts are a little

battle weary, but I’m still referring to them ten years later.

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Lemon

yellow

White Orange Crimson

red

Cadmium

red

Cadmium

yellow deep

Cadmium

yellow

3 EXPERIMENT
The range of acrylic colours is sometimes accused
of being oversaturated, but while they can be
vivid they are no more so than oils or watercolour;
it’s what you do with them that matters.
Like any medium, you can only achieve the colours
and values you want by becoming familiar with
your paints. Most of what we see is not as colourful
as we think so, while observation and simplicity is
key, this can only be translated through knowledge.

Talking Heads, acrylic on card, 6x8in. (15x20cm). This comes from the ‘Still Life with a Twist’ series of paintings. Observation and referring
to painted charts helps develop a sense of colour and value.

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5 COLOUR CHARTS

Whatever palette you choose, understand

its capabilities by making colour charts.

Artist Richard Schmid says, ‘The charts,

a traditional Flemish method of teaching

colour, were designed to exhaust the

possible colour mixes of the palette...

it was ludicrous of me to begin painting

without knowing my paints.’

Knowing what happens when your paints

are mixed together removes your reliance

on trial and error, but it’s here that most

painters ignore the charts and move on.

They assume knowledge of mixing secondary

colours is all they need to know. They see

the charts as an imposition that holds them

back from the real business of making

paintings, but time spent here is priceless

in developing your eye for colour and value.

Having too many paints on your palette

can hamper your progress as it reduces

the need for meaningful colour mixing

that helps you understand your paints

so using a limited palette of just three

primaries and white is a great start.

Fewer colours also means the paints are

regularly intermixed with each other

making for more harmonious paintings.

A good starter palette is:

lUltramarine blue, which is deep,

warm and transparent.

l Crimson red, which is deep, cool

and transparent.

l Cadmium yellow, which is warm,

light and opaque.

This primary triad is ideal for making

deep blacks; the darker blue and red really

contribute to this mix. It also produces

a good range of secondary colours and

gives the cleanest violet.

4 COLOUR PALETTE

Ultramarine blue, crimson

red and cadmium yellow

make an ideal starter

palette. The darker

value ultramarine

blue and crimson red

contribute to make good darks

when all three are mixed together.

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