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Painting with a Limited Palette

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I'm a person who likes simplicity. To me, simplicity's akin to peace and harmony. I strive for simplicity in most areas of my life. I like a schedule, a routine, my morning coffee, and my comfy pajamas. Naturally, when I heard the concept of a limited palette, I was intrigued.

I first learned about using a limited color palette in my Painting class in college. It's a novel idea... "more colors doesn't mean better." (What?!) For those who don't know, a limited palette means limiting the number colors you use to bare essentials.

This is my first EVER color study using the limited color theory. Let's all thank my Professor, Tamera, for this amazing project! It tuned out beautiful if I do say so myself. (For those who are curious, I used Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre, and Cobalt Blue.)


Why Adopt a Limited Pallet?

This way of painting is considered a "less is more" approach. It's like cooking from scratch or following a diet. When you cook from scratch, you have ownership over your food. You know where it came from and how it was made. 

Similarly, when following a diet, you have a sense of ownership. You have decided before hand what foods to choose from... which gives you endless creative possibilities (and helps with that awful decision fatigue.)

This is why I LOVE a limited pallet. It's like cooking from scratch.

The Amazing Anders Zorn

One painter that excelled at this practice was Anders Zorn, a Swedish painter born in 1860. He used a "restrictive palette" of ivory black, white, cadmium red, and yellow ochre. This palette simply uses primary colors plus white, while substituting black for blue.

                                                      Anders Zorn, Self Portrait, 1896, oil on canvas, 91x118cm, The Nationalmuseum

My Personal Experiment 

Upon discovering Andres Zorn, I created my own Zorn Palette using the following colors:

  • Cadmium Chartreuse
  • Napthol Scarlet 
  • French Ultramarine 
  • Asphaltum 
(Technically I added one extra color... IF I used just the Asphaltum or just the Ultramarine it would be considered a Zorn pallet because I substituted that color for black. But I like this color scheme and am very happy with it, so we're ok here 🖤.) 

When Life Gives You Lemons...

With this incredibly complicated color study under-weigh, I started a painting using only those four colors. 

And the only food I had in my house ... (a lemon, two limes, and half an avocado)

Pro Tip:

Just as I adjusted this palette by adding one extra color, you can TOTALLY adjust the idea of a limited palette to your liking. A limited palette can have two colors. A limited palette can have six colors. It's all about creating the cohesion that comes with creating a smaller color palette. I'm very happy with my lemon painting (the avocado is my favorite!) and cannot wait to try out some new color combos. 

Remember!

Less is more.

Andres Zorn is awesome.

Go grocery shopping so you have more to paint than just lemons.

 

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." 
- Leonardo Da Vinci 

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