Deciding on a Color Palette

A City by the River
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
12 x 12 in/30.5 x 30.5 cm
Copyright 2014

One of the things I have both enjoyed and struggled with in my painting life is finding a color palette that suits me. Evidently this causes angst for others as well from all the blogs and articles you read online. Everyone seems interested to know which painter uses which colors and how that works or not and how many colors should you use, etc.

It's enjoyable, in a way, in that it's a continuous learning process on color theory and you get to try it out with each painting. The struggle is that it can get confusing and, if you're like me, you tend to switch it up too often as you run across painters you admire and want to paint like.

I admit I don't spend too much time worrying about if I have too few or too many colors or if I should use both a warm and cool of each primary, or whether split complementary colors is the way to go or whatever.

Anyway, for the moment--this week!-- here is my palette for both acrylic and oil (water-mixable):

Titanium White

Cad Red Light

Primary Red

Cad Yellow Light

Lemon Yellow

Yellow Ochre

Ultramarine Blue

Pthalo Blue (green shade)

I basically try out a palette and if I like the way it looks on a finished painting, then I'm happy (or pretty happy).