Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

MATERIALS & METHODS - Pigments - Approved Pigment List - The Permanent Palette - Restricted Palettes

Color Properties - Pigment Properties - Purity - Permanence

Classification - Grades of Artists' Paints -

From: Mayer, Ralph. The Painter's Craft. An Introduction to Artist's Methods and Materials. Revised and updated by Steven Sheehan, Director of the Ralph Mayer Center, Yale University School of Art. New York: Penquin Group. 1948. 1991.

Restricted Palettes


Successful painting can be done with a palette limited to a very few colors, and on some occasions a simplified palette can be employed to considerable advantage, for there can be several valid reasons for using a small number of colors. However, in the majority of cases it is most advantageous technically to have a full range of pigments available. Single pigments are invariably purer, more brilliant, or vivid than mixtures of pigments made to imitate them. Uniformity of effects and an economy of effort are a few of the other advantages of using colors whose hues are close to those wanted in the final effect.

Painters receive training with simplified palettes as a matter of discipline; sometimes circumstances compel the use of a small assortment of colors, and often a painter will deliberately adapt a limited palette because it may best serve certain aesthetic reasons, aims, or principles. But even in this case it is not wise for the mature painter to exclude too rigidly from the palette pigments which are not habitually in use but which on occasion can be introduced into a painting with good results.

The pigments that comprise our modern approved list are the survivors of a process of elimination that has been going on for a [p. 37] long time--actually, for thousands of years. They remain in popular use not only because they fulfill the necessary chemical and physical requirements but also because a long development has established their status as good and useful tools of coloring and because each has individual characteristics sufficient to warrant its perpetuation. Neither artist nor colormaker wishes to include or perpetuate an excessively large number of nonessential items, and therefore it can be assumed that the colors on the approved list are all valuable. [pp. 37-38]


[Mayer, Ralph. The Painter's Craft. An Introduction to Artist's Methods and Materials. Revised and updated by Steven Sheehan, Director of the Ralph Mayer Center, Yale University School of Art. New York: Penquin Group. 1948. 1991. ]




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