The Hue Shift Bit, Part II

The real deal. Full pigment range, from left on the top most chart: Cad. Lemon, Cad. Yellow, Cad. Yellow Deep, Yellow Ochre Pale, Cad. Red, Terra Rosa, Alizarin, Trans. Oxide Red, Viridian, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue Deep. Things I missed out (or should've tried out): Cobalt Violet (in place of one of the warm yellows), Quinacridone Rose (instead of Alizarin), maybe branch out into oranges and darker blues like Prussian Blue or some Phthalo-containing blues and greens. This would push it closer towards a pallette approximating Sorolla's. Also, the red-oranges can be consolidated somewhat by using Burnt Sienna instead of the Red Oxide and Terra Rosa (but then again, I will lose the transparent quality of the Red Oxide).

In a way, doing these charts mean that you have to be very disciplined and rigorous with yourself. Clean everything and anything on the palette that could and would stain the mixtures, and always be sure what you are putting on to the chart squares at all times (that bluish green you see there? It's never going to be specific enough- just make sure that one batch leans towards blue, the other leans towards green, it has to be subtle but observable).

I guess the main lesson is to understand your palette of choice, and the nature of the pigments that you are using- here, student paints vs. artist quality (of differing brands) really shows in terms of the handling, tinting strength, and overall vibrancy. Some people will stumble across these same points through constant painting, which is entirely valid as well- the point is not to let these exercises dominate the fundamental skillsets of drawing and painting- they are means to an end, not something you do for 'Achievement Unlocked' street cred. 

'Colour' is technically relative to the lighting situation and even on the support you are using, there will be different factors and permutations affecting the 'local colour'- it's the understanding of subtractive mixing, temperatures of pigments and their mixtures, that is the key to this specific type of exercise. You will encounter the legendary Cadmium Salute and the Viridian Handshake (just don't wear any new clothing in the studio, it'll end in tears), and there will be foul language employed. But at the end of the day, the understanding you'll get will be somewhat worth it. And it will be seen that these colour chart exercises are easy- compare them with, oh, the Munsell colour chip matching exercise. Now that's in a completely different league altogether.

The Hue Shift Bit, Part I

These are a series of limited palette colour charts done at the start of the year- they are a simplified version of the legendary Richard Schmid colour mixing exercise. It's a relatively simple means of understanding your pigments- in this case, the charts are meant for figurative and portraiture painting in the studio. Also, I get to learn a lot more about specific characteristics of some of the paints currently floating about in my studio. Gotta do them while I still am young and reckless enough to have free time, I suppose ;)

First chart shows all the colours used in the limited palette- the subsequent charts are each column from the top-most chart (pure colours on the left-most sides of each subsequent charts) mixed with the other colours from the limited set (so the top row on the second chart is Yellow Ochre, then yellow ochre + Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre + Burnt Sienna, etc all lightened down with white). Colours used are (from left) Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, Burnt Sienna, Terra Verte, Cobalt Blue, and Mars Black.

Several observations:

1. Yellow Ochre, or more specifically, the variety that I was using, was too brickish and low value (so by default I cannot get relatively chromatic greens and oranges, even when mixed with Cadmium Red). The remedy to this would be to replace the ochre with a lighter value equivalent, or to use an earth colour like Mars Yellow, giving slightly richer secondaries.
2. Using a limited set or palette of convenience means that it's more difficult to get vibrant mixtures. You don't have the luxury of selecting a warm/cool set for each colour (something like Cad. Red/Crimson Alizarin, Lemon Yellow/Cad. Yellow Deep, Cobalt Blue/Phthalo Blue Deep), so the pigments you have should be of the highest quality and specific to the task at hand. The Munsell Student Colour Book is pretty helpful in this regard, there's a chapter on practical pigments for successful colour mixing.
3. Drying times- cadmiums take a relatively long time to dry compared with the earth pigments, so there might be problems with a figure painting pose that is to be continued the day after (you will inevitably smudge the support when oiling it at the start of a new session the next day), so substituting it with a similar red, like Pyrrole-based reds (comparatively faster drying with the same relative chroma, and cheap!), much like using Mars Black instead of Ivory Black. Then again, you can just mix a bit of drying oil or Liquin into your white paint or red mixture (or use lead white instead).

With something as technical as this, it's pretty easy to get caught up with specifics, and mechanically finishing off these charts as part of a 'to do' list. It's no shortcut to becoming a colour boss, but it'll greatly help it if you've got some sort of reference lying about in the studio environment- would be quite handy in the long run and you get to understand the specifics of the pigments you are using. Cuts the time wasted trying paints when painting out in the field. Know your materials!

Will definitely revisit these colour charts several years from now with these points in mind. There's more practical things to do in the meantime (like, actually starting to draw and paint).