How to Design Your Ideal Limited Palette

Ep.74 guest Patti Vincent, works with a limited palette of 4 colors plus white.

This includes two yellows (primary yellow and yellow ochre), cobalt blue, and Phoenician red plus a white that's either a titanium or a zinc white.

She’s got a reason for everything on her palette.

The whites can work pretty interchangeably but titanium is much more opaque and will cause a color to look chalkier more quickly.

She uses the two yellows because sometimes she needs a really bright yellow for something like a school bus or a bright yellow flower.

That's her primary yellow. Whereas yellow ochre is more often found in the landscape and it mixes to make great greens.

Cobalt blue on its own, is very close to sky color.

Put it to Practice:

While you can absolutely mix almost anything with a limited palette, it never hurts to adjust where it makes sense for the subjects YOU paint.

Start with an extremely limited palette (one yellow, one red, one blue plus white) and then add a color if you find you can't get what you need with those 3 colors.

If you paint flowers, this may be a slightly different limited palette from Vincent, who primarily paints landscapes.

The longer you're painting, you'll learn what colors you use again and again and then what colors you rarely use. And if along the way you find you’ve stopped using one of your palette colors, it’s always OK to remove a paint from your palette as well.