Pigments No.3

What about painting with Primary Colors?
- Which are the best primary pigments?
A Six or Seven Primaries Palette?
A good reduced palette for learning to mix colors (11 colors)
A better 13 colors palette for everyday work
The problem of the browns and of the blacks
- A modern solution for the 21st century
An excellent basic palette with 16 colors
Is this reduced palette enough?
Some useful advice for successfully mixing colors
An extended "basic" palette: 20 colors
Complementary palette

What about painting with Primary Colors?

Important note

This page is devoted to the choice of a palette, as far as the best depiction of colors is concerned. In Pigments No.2, the same problem has been examined on another point of view: the best permanency of the pigments. This explains some differences in the choice of the pigments.

Painting with primary colors is a very good school exercice. However, it is impossible to reproduce all the colors with such a method. (See Subtractive Systems, What about the Painters?)

Mixing primary colors for making ochres and browns is an excellent exercise for learning to mix the colors, but:

it’s very difficult to obtain precisely the wanted shade and
it’s absurd as far as permanence is concerned, because the natural and synthetic ochres and browns (earth pigments and synthetic iron oxides) are the most permanent of all known pigments.

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Which are the best primary pigments?

In fact, there exists no perfect primary pigment. Personally speaking, I consider that, for such type of painting, permanence is more important than excellent primary qualities. Why? Because, for good oil painting, you need to know perfectly how the pigments react to each other. Learning to mix good primary (but not very permanent) pigments C and D correctly is a nonsense if later on you will use nearly primary (but permanent) pigments A and B only.

In addition, for a good depiction of colors when painting in oils, you need white and black too, like the printers who use three primaries plus the white of the paper and a black ink.

When you limit yourself to three primaries plus black and white, the more transparent these primaries are, the better it is. That’s why I prefer (Transparent) Chromophytal Yellow PY128 to Cadmium Yellow Light PY35.

So, the best palette *) **) for painting with nearly primary permanent pigments is:

*) The colors of all the tables below are approximate. It´s indeed impossible to guarantee an accurate representation of colors on the screen, which depends on the adjustment of every monitor.

**) Perfectly seen with NeoPlanet 5.2, Internet Explorer 6.0, Netscape 6.2 or Opera 6.0, . Some older browsers don’t show the colors of these tables correctly (or even don’t show them at all).

¶¶	Titanium White PW6
¶	Chromophytal (Transparent) Yellow PY128
¶	Quinacridone Rose PV19
¶+	Phthalocyanine Blue PB15 or PB15:1
¶¶+	Mars Black PBk11

Note:

Not every oil colors manufacturer can sell you PY128. Some brands propose another organic yellow as a Primary Yellow, like PY1, PY3, PY153, etc. But

either these pigments are often partially transparent,
or they are not sufficiently permanent (according to my personal lightfastness tests) and, for this reason,
do not belong to the final list of the best pigments I propose for painting in oils.

That’s why the second choice for painting with nearly primary permanent pigments is:

¶¶	Titanium White PW6
¶+	Cadmium Yellow Light or Pale PY35
¶	Quinacridone Rose PV19
¶+	Phthalocyanine Blue PB15 or PB15:1
¶¶+	Mars Black PBk11

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A Six or Seven Primaries Palette?

With the above 5 pigments palette, getting lemon yellow or a good violet is impossible. Very bright reds and oranges are a problem too. But the greens are rather good. For better practical results, most books recommand a 6 Primaries Palette (2 yellows, 2 reds, 2 cyan/blues). But personally, I recommend you to work with 7 nearly primaries. With Ultramarine Blue you can get rather good violets, and with Cadmium Red Medium you have a brilliant red, good for getting bright oranges too.

You need two yellows: a greenish one and a pure “yellowish” yellow, even a very little bit “reddish”.

An option should have been to replace Transparent Yellow PR128 by Cadmium Yellow Light or Medium (depending on the brand — see note 1 in Pigments No.2), because the latter is the main yellow pigment of a normal palette, and because one has to become accustomed with working with it. And indeed, in normal painting, Transparent Yellow may not seem so useful, because it’s often reserved for final glazes.

Nevertheless, I’ve preferred to preconize a 7 Primaries palette containing 3 yellows: Cadmium, PR128 and a permanent Lemon Yellow, Nickel Titanium Yellow PY53, which is not so bright as Cadmium Lemon PY35, but which is more permanent and can give very fine greens when mixing it with Phthalo Blue. The main reason of keeping Cadmium Yellow Medium (of Light) and PR128 together in the palette is that a transparent and an opaque yellow don’t work the same way in the mixtures.

Try to mix Phthalo Blue, Ultramarine or Black with these 3 yellows and you’ll immediatly understand the differences. Later, when you’ll add the greens (Phthalo Green and Viridian) to your palette, make the same exercize again. It’s amazing how you will learn about mixing fantastic greens from this way of working.

¶¶	Titanium White PW6
¶¶	Nickel Titanium Yellow PY53
¶+	Cadmium Yellow Light or Medium PY35
¶	Chromophytal (Transparent) Yellow PY128
¶+	Cadmium Red Medium PR108
¶	Quinacridone Rose PV19
¶+	French Ultramarine PB29
¶+	Phthalocyanine Blue PB15 or PB15:1
¶¶+	Mars Black PBk11

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A good reduced palette for learning to mix colors (11 colors)

To get more easily ochres and browns, I have added to the above palette an Ochre and an all-purpose Brown: Burnt Sienna. (For getting dark browns, it’s easy to mix Burnt Sienna with Ultramarine and/or Black.) We are now coming to a 11 colors palette.

¶¶	Titanium White PW6
¶¶	Nickel Titanium Yellow PY53
¶+	Cadmium Yellow Light or Medium PY35
¶	Chromophytal (Transparent) Yellow PY128
¶+	Cadmium Red Medium PR108
¶	Quinacridone Rose PV19
¶+	French Ultramarine PB29
¶+	Phthalocyanine Blue PB15 or PB15:1
¶¶+	Mars Black PBk11
¶¶+	Yellow Ochre PY43
¶¶+	Burnt Sienna PBr7

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A better 13 colors palette for everyday work

Now this reduced palette is not yet perfect. Actually, I should have replaced Ultramarine by Cobalt Blue, which is more permanent and has none of the limitations of Ultramarine. But doing that signifies that we cannot make good violets any longer, unless we add a permanent violet to this list of pigments. For good greens, it’s easier to include a green pigment too. That’s why I now propose the following 13 colors basic palette, with practically no limitations.

¶¶	Titanium White PW6
¶¶	Nickel Titanium Yellow PY53
¶+	Cadmium Yellow Light or Medium PY35
¶	Chromophytal (Transparent) Yellow PY128
¶+	Cadmium Red Medium PR108
¶	Quinacridone Rose PV19
¶¶	Manganese Violet^1,2,3,4 PV16
¶¶	Cobalt Blue PB28
¶+	Phthalocyanine Blue PB15 or PB15:1
¶¶	Viridian PG18
¶¶+	Mars Black PBk11
¶¶+	Yellow Ochre PY43
¶¶+	Burnt Sienna PBr7

Notes:

¶¶ Manganese Violet has a poor reputation among some painters, because it is sensitive to strong acids and to alkalis, what prevents its use for painting in fresco, and could be a problem in watercolors too. But when painting in oils, it’s a perfectly safe pigment. Perhaps its bad reputation is in relation with its price too: actually Manganese Violet — being cheaper than Cobalt Violet — has acted for a long time as substitute for the latter in some poor quality oil colors.
¶¶ Cobalt Violet Dark PV14 (an absolutely permanent pigment in any circumstances) could have replaced Manganese Violet, its shade being almost identical to the one of Manganese Violet. However, I’ve preferred recommending the latter because it’s easier to work with it than with Cobalt Violet Dark for getting beautiful mixtures. But you can try Cobalt Violet without the slightest remorse.
¶ Permanent Magenta PV19 cannot be a good replacement solution, because it has a redder shade, which is not so useful in this palette because on the one hand you already have Quinacridone Rose for getting a redder shade by mixing it with Manganese Violet PV16, and on the other hand mixing Cobalt Blue with Quinacridone Rose cannot give an as good Blue Shade Violet as pure Manganese Violet.
I advise you against Dioxazine Purple (or Violet) PV23. Actually, my personal trials have demonstrated without any doubt that this pigment is not very lightfast (see Trials. 3. Alizarine and Dioxazine Violet).

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The problem of the browns and of the blacks

For getting dark browns I advise you to mix Burnt Sienna with one of the following pigments: Phthalo Blue, Cobalt Blue, Manganese Violet, Viridian or even Black.

For getting good blacks, the easy solution used to be mixing Ultramarine and Burnt Umber. But now many authors prevent us against the use of these two pigments. The problem is that:

Natural Burnt Umber (PBr7), owing to its high manganese content, is a very siccative pigment, what doesn’t matter when painting in watercolors or in acrylics, but could ruin your painting when working in oils.
Ultramarine (PB29) can be bleached by acids or acidic atmospheres. That’s important when painting in watercolors, but much less important in acrylics or in oils.

However, as Burnt Umber dries quickly and Ultramarine slowly, their mixture will dry more or less normally. One can thus think that the result cannot be too dangerous for the oil film.

Personally, up till now, I have never had problems with Ultramarine in oils.
Neither have I had problems with blacks done by mixing Burnt Umber and Ultramarine.

But remember to be cautious when painting with these two pigments. The best thing is to employ them only when it’s impossible to get the hue you need with other ones, in view of which you can add these two pigments to your oil palette.

Some manufacturers don’t sell natural Burnt Umber PBr7 any longer. They have replaced it by mixtures of Synthetic Iron Oxide PR101 and Mars Black PBk11 (or another black like Lamp Black PBk6). Sometimes these mixtures are sold under another name like “(Permanent) Vandyke Brown”, “(Permanent) Sepia”, etc.

More or less frequently they have a little darker shade, but this is no problem.

All these “Synthetic” Burnt Umbers can be used without reservations. But remain cautious and never buy the following two colors:

Vandyke Brown when it is a mixture containing non permanent pigments like Alizarin PR83 or other ones;
Vandyke Brown PBr8 (a natural earth): it is one of the worst pigments for painting in oils (it can fade, crack or turn darker!).

Note: Natural Sepia is the ink of the cuttlefish. I don’t think it exists in oil color. In any case, it is a very bad pigment that fades in the light.

(Back to 16 colors palette)
(Back to Pigments No.1)

A modern solution for the 21st century

Try to make most of your blacks by mixing Phthalo or Cobalt Blue with Burnt Sienna. In any case you will get deeper blacks (= more transparent) than the ones you could obtain with any pure black (Mars Black PBk11, Ivory Black PBk9, Lamp Black PBk6). But it remains impossible to get a neutral black, what is very easy with Ultramarine and Burnt Umber.

Since some years, there is another solution yet: if you mix Indanthrene Blue PB60 with Burnt Sienna PBr7, you can very easily reproduce the brown shade of Burnt Umber. If you add a little more blue (Indanthrene or even Ultramarine) to the mixture, you immediatly get superb blacks! And so, for getting blacks, you don’t need Burnt Umber nor Vandyke Brown in your palette any longer.

Other advantages of Indanthrene Blue are:

It’s a transparent pigment so that its mixtures with Burnt Sienna usually give deeper blacks than any mixture of some other blue with any sort of dark brown (Vandyke Brown or Burnt Umber);
Its reddish shade is more suitable for making blacks with Burnt Sienna than the greenish shade of Phthalocyanine Blue PB15. (Back to Pigments No.2, note 4)

Conclusion

At the present time, the deepest neutral blacks can be obtained very easily by mixing:

Either Indanthrene Blue PB60 with Burnt Sienna PBR7;
Or Ultramarine with a “Synthetic” Burnt Umber.

Note

In any case, the problem seems not to exist any more for the oil painter who paints with alkyd colors, because these resins dry so fast that the manufacturer should have been able to get rid of any significant difference of drying time between all the pigments.

(back to Pigments No.2, Natural Umbers)

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An excellent basic palette with 16 colors

So we come to a nearly complete palette of 16 colors. I have indeed added some very useful pigments like:

¶+ French Ultramarine PB29.
¶+ Indanthrene Blue PB60.
¶¶+ “Synthetic” Burnt Umber or “Permanent” Vandyke Brown — a mixture of Synthetic Iron Oxide PR101 and a black like Mars Black PBk11 or a carbon black (PBk6 or PBk9) seems to be the best choice, but Burnt Sienna PBr7 plus Ivory or Lamp Black PBk9 or PBk6 (or other permanent pigments) can do the trick too (see above).

I’ve put this last color in the palette, because a dark brown is a very useful color for any mixture.

¶¶	Titanium White PW6
¶¶	Nickel Titanium Yellow PY53
¶+	Cadmium Yellow Light or Medium PY35
¶	Chromophytal (Transparent) Yellow PY128
¶+	Cadmium Red Medium PR108
¶	Quinacridone Rose PV19
¶¶	Manganese Violet PV16
¶+	Indanthrene Blue PB60
¶+	French Ultramarine PB29
¶¶	Cobalt Blue PB28
¶+	Phthalocyanine Blue PB15 or PB15:1
¶¶	Viridian PG18
¶¶+	Yellow Ochre PY43
¶¶+	Burnt Sienna PBr7
¶¶+	A “Synthetic” Burnt Umber — e.g. Synthetic Iron Oxide PR101 + Mars Black PBk11
¶¶+	Mars Black PBk11

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Is this reduced palette enough?

For everyday work, certainly yes. Remember that the masterpieces of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were painted with limited palettes too. Even the French Impressionists would have been delighted with this list of 16 colors. But from time to time you will need some other pigments for particular effects. However, I advise you not to be too anxious of trying other colors.

Let’s do a little maths. If you mix together 2 colors in equal proportions, you only get another one. For example black plus white can only make gray. Now you have 3 colors. But you can try various proportions of black and white and get for example a dozen of different grays. Take now 16 colors and mix them in twos (in the same proportions), you get 136 colors. It’s already more than the range proposed by most manufacturers. But if you vary the proportions, you can get thousands of new shades very easily.

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Some useful advice for successfully mixing colors

At first, never mix more than two colors at the same time.
You can do that on oil sketching paper. On the same paper, note down with a HB or B drawing pencil which colors you’ve used and let it dry. Always keep the results of your work for later reference.

This exercise is rather tedious with oils, owing to their long drying time, but you can do it with acrylics or watercolors too, (e.g. in a spiral bound sketch book), provided you use the same pigments as in oils.

Begin with a palette limited to 3 or 7 primary colors. Try every possible mixing. (Perhaps you could be surprised to see that yellow plus black gives olive green.)
Then you add Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna. Mix Ochre with Black, White and your six primaries; then the same thing with Burnt Sienna.
Now try the 11 colors palette and later the 13 colors one in the same way.
Then you go to the 16 colors palette.
Later on, when you’ll handle these mixings perfectly, you could try to mix 3 colors together.

Here you can see the result of such a two colors mixing on drawing paper.
Click on the image for getting it bigger (77K).

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An extended “basic” palette: 20 colors

Now I think the most useful colors to add could be the following four:

Cerulean Blue PB35, particularly for the skies. A mixture of Cerulean Blue and Ultramarine looks like the Genuine Lapis Lazuli of the Ancient Masters very much.
Cadmium Yellow Deep PY35. Very useful for mixing greens and oranges and for the human flesh.
Light Red (= English Red = Red Ochre) PR101. Almost indispensable for the human flesh (of white people).
A “New Permanent Alizarine”: Permanent Madder Deep PR264 or Permanent Crimson Alizarine PR177. Useful in the skies, the draperies, and a mass of mixings.

¶¶	Cerulean Blue PB35
¶+	Cadmium Yellow Deep PY35
¶¶+	Light (or English) Red PY101
(¶)	Permanent Madder Deep PR264
(¶)	Permanent Crimson Alizarine PR177

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Complementary palette

Now you have a “basic”palette of 20 colors. There’s no point in still talking a long time about new colors you can add to it. You may try every other permanent color which I talked about. Perhaps the most transparent ones will be the most useful, perhaps not. It depends on your way of painting.

Personally, I particularly like the following five pigments:

¶¶	Opaque Oxide of Chromium PG17
¶¶	Cobalt Violet (Light) PV14
¶¶	Cobalt Violet Dark PV14
¶+	Anthranthrone Red PR168
¶¶+	Transparent Yellow Oxide PY42


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