If you paint figures out-of-doors you will need this same palette. Madder carmine or
purple madder, and cerulean blue may also usefully added to this list.
A Flower Palette. - For painting flowers the colors should be capable of the most
exquisite and delicate of tints. There should be no color on the palette which cannot be
used in any part of the picture. The range need not be so great in some respects as in
others, but the richness should be unlimited. In the matter of greens, it is true though
hard to convince the amateur of, that if there were no green tube in your box, and you
mixed all your greens from the yellows and blues, the picture would be the better. As to
the browns, they will put your whole picture out of key. In this palette I am sure you will
find every color, which is needed. There are few greens, but those given can be used to
gray a petal as well as to paint a leaf; therefore there is no likelihood of your using a
color in a leaf which is not in tone with the flower.
I am calculating on your using all you ability in studying the influence of color on
color, and in mixing pure colors to make gray. Here as elsewhere in these palettes I have
in mind their use according to the principles of color and light and effect as laid down in
the other parts of this book, which deal specially with those principles. If you do not
understand just why I arrange these palettes as I do, turn to the chapters on color, and
on the different kinds of painting, and I think you will see what I mean, and understand
better what I say, about these combinations.
Of course you do not need all of these colors on your palette at the same time. Some
are necessary to certain flowers whose richness and depth you could hardly get without
them. The colors you should have as a rule on your palette are these:
WHITE. STRONTIAN YELLOW.
ORANGE VERMILION. CADMIUM YELLOW.
PINK MADDER. ORANGE CADMIUM.
ROSE MADDER. YELLOW OCHRE.
COBALT. ULTRAMARINE.
VERIDIAN. EMERALD GREEN.
To add to these when needed, you should have in your box, pale and deep cadmium,
Chinese vermilion, madder carmine, and purple madder.