Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Limited Palette

I've been a bad blogger. I get caught up in work and forget to post. Anyhoo- I've been working with a limited palette lately. Using an old travel palette, I have been experimenting with using only 8 colors. Cobalt blue, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson, cadmium red, neutral tint, french ultramarine, yellow ochre, and hookers green. The results have been interesting. I wanted to see what could be done without some of my "go to" colors and the lessons I've learned are well worth it. The main point was to focus more on value than color and see if I could paint with as much depth as I could with my every day palette. Either way you decide. Here are a couple of new ones. I've been painting quite a lot lately so there's a large waiting list of images I need to post. I'll try and break it up into a few different posts to keep things interesting.

is

5th Avenue in Rain


The Commuter

12 comments:

  1. Beautiful and inspiring. I love the limited palette approach and it's very evocative of fall.

    Martin

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your work continues to amaze me. Can't wait to see what else you have done.

    ReplyDelete
  3. They are gorgeous, Iain. Well done! Whenever I try to use a less transparent palette, i get MUD.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks guys! The new palette is really freeing as I don't get caught up in recreating a color, but get to play with tonal quality instead. More than a few more to come.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Iain...just fabulous...can't wait to see more.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Ian,
    Beautiful and thank you for sharing them.
    Kind regards, Sadami

    ReplyDelete
  7. Your work is fabulous, I saw you on the Bold Brush contest and had to come over and leave a comment. I'm excited to find you blog and looking forward to future posts:)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I just saw you're in Opelika, my hubby is in the Air Force and we're in Prattville, Al (Montgomery area).

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your work is outstanding, Its a privilege to see it. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You paint some of the most beautiful cityscapes I have seen --The yellow and red provide all the contrast, the experiment with limited palette is a success!

    ReplyDelete
  11. These are great paintings. I found this post looking online for your palette- realize this post is a little dated. Recently, I watched your youtube video and realize you were using a limited palette there too.

    ReplyDelete