Old Palette Primaries

Done on the back of a London Winter painting, I found a paint test that reveals some clues about what paint I used to have. Just because its on the back of a 1997 painting doesn't mean it was done then, I would sometimes grab an old painting to test things out on the back. In this case, it was a variety of yellows, blues, and reds which I considered to be primary colours at the time. After reading Handprint.com (MacEvoy) I learned that the idea of primary colours is an invention of Vicotrian era colour theorists, and the idea is mostly wrong. The main part of the theory was that you can not mix yellow, red or blue from other colours. It may have been true then, but now with modern paints you can mix blue from green and violet, you can mix red from yellow and magenta, and you can mix yellow from green and orange. To be fair, the colours you end up with are dark versions, but they are still blue, red and yellow. Anyways, I was taught to use the so called 'split primary' palette from books, where you have two of each primaries one warm and one cool. This too is a pretty limited idea, for one thing it caused me to avoid orange paint all these years. 

There are a few clues in the paint test as to what paints I had during my time in London and early days of Montreal, so roughly 2004 until 2008 I would guess. The paints on the test include:

AY which Aureolin yellow PY40, I used it a lot because it was a soft greenish yellow excellent for shadows and lime greens, but I stopped using it due to the fact the colour turns brown in the sun, and it is toxic, in fact, I still have the unfinished tubes ready for toxic waste disposal! 

WY was winsor yellow (PY154), I may well have bought it to try and replace aureolin yellow, and now it is my main yellow although I bought a less expensive version from Holbein. 

WL is Winsor lemon (PY175), it is the closest thing to aureolin there is, and I still use it to this day, the one I have is from Daniel Smith company. 

WB is winsor blue red shade (PB15:1) a phthalo blue, and the same one I still use but from Holbein. 

FU was not what you think, it was french ultramarine, an incredible blue that I reluctantly set aside in 2020 due to its chemical instability.  

CB was cerulean blue (PB35) a soft granulating cyan blue I used in skies and shadows. I stopped using it mostly, and then completely by 2020 due to slight toxicity. In the paint test I was trying to figure out the best way to paint a blue sky. I'm still working on that!

SL is scarlet lake, probably was PR188 from Winsor and Newton, which has decent lightfastness, but I never used it again, has some toxicity.

PR was probably permanent rose Winsor and Newton based on its appearance PV19, another colour I use currently but from M. Graham. 

From this list I notice a few things, I liked Winsor and Newton paints! Probably because Mom and I bought a lot of these from Curry's in Toronto which mostly carried this brand. It was in 2008 when I went to the Sennelier store I branched out a lot, then in Montreal discovered Holbein and others. Unfortunately the price on Winsor and Newton paint is too high now compared to the other brands so I just buy a few here and there. I was also surprised to see that many paints I use today were on my old palette from 15 years ago. What's old is new!