Thoughts on paint mixing, part 1

I used almost the same group of paints and mixing strategy for about 30 years prior to 2020. The main 5 paints are depicted in panel A of the figure above, they were viridian green, aureolin yellow, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson, and french ultramarine. Those paints could produce a wide range of turquoise, brown, black, greens, dull orange and dull purple. In panel B top right, I had cerulean blue and rose madder genuine, along with aureolin yellow, they produced a range of subtle grey mixes for concrete and shadows. To paint sky I combined cerulean and french ultramarine in a separate area of the palette (panel C). As I learned how to paint green it was important to have a separate area for that too, in panel D were greens including some convenience greens, burnt sienna, and yellow. Finally, I had some accent colours that were useful in situations and I used them a lot for abstracts. 

The main advantage of that setup was that each colour area could produce a wide range, but stayed focused on a theme. In particular, the greys and blues had to remain clean, without any of the phthalo green or alizarin crimson which would mess them up. The limitation was that I had to mix a lot, it was almost a matter of pride that I could swish together 4 or 5 paints and come up with something that looked good. When I look back on old paintings, one trip that really impressed me in retrospect, was the 2000 Keystone Colorado seen here and here. The colours required really pushed the limits- warm wood paneling, atmospheric greens on distant mountains, glowing skies, pine greens, and mounds of snow. Clearly I could do a lot with the palette, so why change?

Part 2 of this blog will have to come some time in the future, because I have totally redone my paint selection to remove toxic, obsolete, and non-lightfast paints. If you follow my blog you will see updates from time to time, I added a lot of paints, then simplified it for spring time painting. I would prefer to settle on one way of painting, it is the best way to learn. At some point your paints and palette become an extension of your vision and inspiration requiring no thought whatsoever. But it takes years to get there. One thing I can say is that painting is a life long pursuit, there is always another discovery or improvement to be made just around the corner. 

Note: For the recreation of the pre-2020 palette seen above, I copied alizarin with pyrole red (PR254), with a bit of perylene red (PR179) and quin purple (PV55). The rose madder is actually dilute PV19, and the cerulean is cobalt blue with a touch of phthalo. Aureloin is just PY154 diluted, and sap green is PG36 with PO36. Just wanted to note that replacing those old colours was not too hard.