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| Minita by Michael Van Zeyl |
I'm taking a class by local Chicago artist Michael Van Zeyl. While he discussed his palette it dawned on me that an artists palette needs to be thought about more than just the tubes of paint he squeezes out onto his palette. Though out this blog you will see so many different combinations of palette colors. What I might be missing are the second stage to these palette.
This second stage is when we discover the purpose to a specific few colors. X+Y = intended palette color. This is exciting to think about. Maybe you've wondered why an artist choose a color that seemed odd or didn't seem present in their work. This is now what we can think about, their stage two palette, all the colors they habitually set up once those tube colors are squeezed out.
Michael his this to say about his palette:
For tube colors that are darker than value five I have two puddles of paint. One straight from the tube and one mixed with white to lighten the value to value five. In other words, I keep a row of my colors mixed to value five to have pure color to start working from the middle values and gradually go darker and lighter.
- Lefranc Titanium White
- Alizarin Permanent - Gamblin
- Quinacridone Red
- Cadmium Red Medium
- Transparent Earth Red (or oxide red)
- Transparent Earth Yellow (or oxide yellow)
- Yellow Ochre (Gamblin listed at value 5)
- Cadmium Yellow Deep
- Cadmium Yellow Lemon
- Sap Green
- Viridian Green
- Cobalt Blue Blue
- Ultramarine Blue
- Ivory Black
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| Van Zeyl's palette from the class demo |
I'm intrigued by the idea of mixing colors to specific value ranges rather than specific colors themselves. This also coincides with my feelings that value is of the utmost importance. From a sci-fi fantasy illustrator's point of view this is how painting a being with different color skins than we are used to seeing is made believable.
