The Limits of the Primary Palette
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ค. 2024
- A half hour video showing just how limited the blue-yellow-red "primary" palette is for artists.
I mix the extent of the range of colours you can get at a few problematic hues to demonstrate why a primary palette will hold you back more than it helps you.
Find out more about how I teach colour and get "The Keys to Colour" - a free 6 part email course - here:
www.learning-to-see.co.uk/keys
Thank you for the demonstration:) I agree that having some extra colors like umber, thalo green , some cobalt teal and a bright red like cadmium red light or pyrrole red is good to have available whenever you may need them, and not limit yourself, and have fun with the paint :)
Thank you. I wish somebody taught me color mixing like this 2 years ago. This way of testing a palette seems more effective than endless hours of color charts that are hard to judge for correctness unless you are trained properly and have ample amount of experience. Gotta get the color chips.
Exactly!
This was so helpful. I was struggling with using a limited palette and kept reaching for burnt umber now I know why. I thought I just didn’t know how to do it properly. Or my paint wasn’t high enough quality. You just saved me weeks or months of frustration. This explained it so well. Munsel seems essential.
That's wonderful to hear Mary. What I hope for more than anything else with these videos is that I can save people wasted time and effort. Painting is hard enough as it is!
Excellent, well communicated advice, revealing the short comings of the three colour primary pallete.
This is a fantastic breakdown of color matching and what paints work and what paints to stay away from when you are trying to find the desired color.
Thank you!
Wish you try 1:1:1, Cadmium Yellow,
Ultramarine Blue and Pyrrole Red
to get the Dark Brown.
Always great demonstrations.
Thank you for sharing.
Wow, I really appreciate your advice. I know that I have been getting incredibly frustrated on a limited pallet and am am really grateful for what you have taught here. There is so much content on colour theory out there and it is rare that I come across such sound and practicle logic, thank you.
You're very welcome Jessica! I'm so heartened to hear that you're finding it useful. Yes, I have to agree, there is a lot of confusing and vague information out there about colour for painters. I struggled with it a lot too, which is why I try to pass on as much as I can of the answers I've found for myself over the years.
awesome as usual! my work is so improved every video you do thanx
Thank you Stuart!
Brilliant, thank you, too late i am beging to study, value, hue, chroma etc, and this has been a bit help, plus you kept my attention all the way through, (very rare) lol
CMYK is what they use in printing. So I mainly use these colours plus white.
While I am sure you can't hit every hue, value, croma, of every color with limited primary palette especially the bright bright ones, but for the ranges in value as suggest by carder using a burned umber would make it a lot easier.Since no black is used, French ultramarine + burnt umber used in proportions either to form a cool or warm black can be used to drop the value.
Absolutely Tanisha, adding burnt umber would make it significantly easier to mix low chroma, low value colours. It wouldn't help you hit mid and higher chroma greens, which is where this palette really falls down, or any other higher chroma colours since burnt umber is a low chroma colour itself.You can't hit higher chroma colours by adding another lower one. You could mix something very close to burnt umber with just these three colours.
But it would be the most useful addition to make, since it would make mixing lower chroma colours much easier, and as you say it would significantly extend the value range and you could mix a usable "black".
It also wouldn't be a primary palette then, so would't be what I was testing. If you add burnt umber, I see no reason then not to add ivory black (extend the value range to the limits of oil paint) and a high chroma mid value green too (till fill the biggest gap). Then you have a limited palette that will be easier to use with a significantly expanded range.
Some people do insist on saying you can hit every colour with a primary palette , I've found, even though they haven't tested it to find out. More unfortunately sometimes other people will then believe that without testing it for themselves. The main point of me doing tests like is to encourage people to find out for themselves what you can and can't reach with a limited palette.
We all have access to the same paint. There really is no need to take anyone else's word for it - including mine!
@@PaulFoxton I think while you are right that if one wants to then extend the range you can go all out and extend it, hence it wouldn't be a primary palette, but I think like every other palette has its pros and cons, while intensity in greens and a bit of purples might me where it lacks, it still gives an artist greater range of color from what they initially started out also it makes your pictures more coherent and controlled. If thats what you are looking for.
Anyway I think you videos are great, and love your painting and style of teaching with munsell, Thank you for replying, have a great day!
@@TA-dl1qh hello all.
I would like to comment on “It also wouldn’t be a primary palette then”…yes that would be correct if a “primary palette” was actually limited to only 3 choices. And I’m sure that is what you meant. Absolutely no one can make EVERY “color” with ANY currently available multi “primary” palette’s available to artists that would replicate all human perceived “colors”. But, one can replicate a certain gamut of “colors” in every HUE with any arbitrarily well chosen Triadic “Primitives”. Paul is just stressing important possible limitations of a very limited palette. Even those who use them still have on hand other tubes of paint that they use when they need them and seriously…if you find yourself constantly mixing a specific color available on the market for cheap…you should buy that convenience paint. For those who scream the “glory” of CYM Triadic “primitives” as if they were gods, listen closely…they fall short of mixing colors that other paints can make. So perhaps we need more than 3 primitives in the first place as even Davinci himself proclaimed that Green should also be a “primitive”. Have a nice day!
Oh I love this video my gosh.
Excellent video
brilliant lesson!!... thanks!!
That was really informative, thank you
Great stuff
Thank you
In the absense of a Burnt Umber -- or a tube-Black -- would a palette-mixed chromatic Black or "Dark" allow for the low-value low-chroma mix from the three primaries? Or would the constituent primary components of the "Dark" shift towards "cool" or "warm" away from the target hue-value-chroma? Most Blacks are blue-biased.
Great content.
Thank you !
I am a beginner in anything when it comes to painting. I had started with oil painting 2 decades ago and had a break. Now I am learning watercolour. And to me it lookes like, oil is much harder to mix. Of course also opaque and transparent colours also play a role in oil paint mixes but I guess even more when it comes to watercolour. still I would have like to see the one low value green (dark green) mixed with a little red. how that would have effecte the mix.
Red and green, complements, tend toward brown. Right? I gotta try this. I’d try first mixing a green, then add red maybe in equal proportions…what do you think?
Very interesting, I guess that is why they call it a 'limited palette'
Excellent breakdown, thanks. Do you have a preferred palette (split primaries? convenience colors?) or do you always mix each color beforehand, one nuance at a time with the Munsell chips, like you do in your demos?
Thanks. When I'm making paintings, I just put out what I need based on the subject and what I want to achieve with it. There doesn't seem much point to me in putting out tube colours I won't use :)
The better question for me to ask would have been what kind of tube selection do you feel is most efficient to match the widest variety of Munsell colours? Or are there unusual tube colours that are indispensable to match certain colours or you can manage with most standard tubes? Or in other words what would be your goto set of tubes you use (daily or so) to mix for your subject matter?
@@mhrobe Well, that's the point - I don't have a go-to set of tubes. I put out whatever I need for what I'm painting :) But this is a good list that will give you a wide gamut without having lots of tubes:
Ivory black
Titanium white
Burnt umber
Raw umber
Yellow ochre
Cadmium orange
Cadmium red
Cadmium yellow
Ultramarine blue
Pthalocyanine green or similar high chroma blue green (Winsor and Newton Winsor green is good)
Alizarin Crimson
Sap Green (Winsor and Newton)
Thanks for your response, Paul. Since I have asked my question, inspired by your videos, I have purchased the Munsell student book: as the previous owner had permanently glued all samples to the book's pages (!?!%), I managed to put together a full (facsimile) Munsell book after buying the Munsell printable pdf online. It is not as accurate as the real one, obviously (although I have a really great Epson printer), but the whole project has been a really useful experience (physically building and assembling it). It is also a great tool to practice paint mixing and as a colour matching exercise on everyday objects around the house.
Thanks again for sharing all those generous videos of yours on your channel or on gumroad: your knowledge has been a game changer for me and I am looking forward to enrolling in your full colour course in the near (I hope) future. Take care.
BTW, I love this video!!!
Do you ever use Permanent Alizarin by Gambln? It is supposed to not change color.
Dove si acquistano i talloncini con le scale dei valori?
Where did you get the color swatches to which you compared your mixtures?
It's the Munsell Student Book. It has all the swatches. You can also buy a pdf edition, but it's less accurate. You need a really good printer to get close to the physical swatches.
What is the isbn # of that book please thanks
I'd be interested to see you add a phthalo blue to this mix, so the palette would be more CYM than RBY - thoughts?
Indeed, I've done some experiments with that, also using a slightly more green-biased yellow (PY74) instead of cad yellow. It has a considerably wider gamut than this palette so is much better from that point of view.
In use I find the picture is similar, though - low chroma colours are difficult to mix (they're much easier to mix with earths and ivory black on the palette) and some colours you just can't get without using a wider range of tube paints.
Inevitably, the only way to reach a wide gamut of colours is with a wider selection of tube paints. I reckon about 12 is a good average (that includes white and black).
@@PaulFoxton Thank you for your swift reply. I previously did a lot of research around RGB palettes and now am revising a lot of my thinking and paint mixing to hook more around CMY - hence my question.
I am finding that a lot of the colours I have I'm not using and I'm making poor colour choices because I don't really understand how they relate to each other (as they aren't pure and I don't know exactly which colours they are mixed with).
I am of a similar opinion that having about 10 or so is sufficient. I'm looking to change to a warm and cool of each 'primary' colour (lemon+cad yellow [PY3+PT35], french ultramarine+phthalo blue [PB29+PB15:3], quinacridone magenta+quin violet [PR122+PV19]), mars black, titanium white, a dark brown (burnt umber) and a light brown (yellow ochre). Maybe throw in a paynes grey and a cad orange for completeness.
I am going to experiment with the first 8 and paint with those for a few pictures, to see if I can swap from a huge range to a restricted palette and still get what I want from them. I think my learning about colour mixing will improve greatly.
Thanks again for your comments and for the great video. It's so important for budding artists like me to be able to pick the brains of accomplished artists such as yourself :) The best of luck in your endeavours.
I'm of the suspicion that a combination of the Primaries palette and the Zorn palette...plus a green...is needed for a reasonable gamut; eight source colors. Yellow and Ultramarine (purple-blue) are nearly 180-hue degress apart, so you need a Sap Green or Chromium Oxide Green to bridge the gap. Yellow Ochre and Burnt Umber provide lower Chroma yellow-oranges, and Ivory Black for the dark neutral.
For a "cleaner" blue, Prussian or Cobalt Blue could be substituted. Some Ultramarines have a lot of "red" in them. While powerful, the Phthalo Blues and Phthalo Greens can be too-powerful for a limited palette.
Yes, that would give you a pretty good gamut, and would do well in the vast majority of paintings. It's usually the greens that are missing from limited palettes.
Pthalo colours are fine as long as you don't use too much :) As long as you have a good handle on how to mix, they're fine to have on your palette I think. They throw people without a lot of mixing experience because the chroma is so high. But they just give you more range, which is a good thing in a limited palette.
To get a good gamut on the blue side of the hue wheel, ultramarine and another, either cobalt or cerulean, would give you the best range. If you mis sone of them out you'll limit your gamut there.
The only thing you'd really be missing here is a high chroma magenta, which you could solve if you ever needed to by adding a high chroma magenta :)
@@PaulFoxton A common fail I see in many landscapes is typically the chromas are too-saturated, and the range of hues too-narrow... This is one of the hazards of painting from photos ...as most cameras boost the contrast and/or chroma for what some call the "postcard effect". Those simplistic cardboard color-wheel sold in paint-shops and art-supply shops have done so much damage to cogent color-theory. I've deal with color for decades professionally as an architect*, and recently the Munsell system and Bruce MacEvoy's Handprint website have been revelations. I've moved totally away from "primaries and secondaries" and "warm/cools" to just seeing it as "colors" as we see them (hue-value-chroma) and "paint" as chemistry. Warm/cool can have an effect mixing watercolors, but in oils it's not really helpful.
The one aspect of Mark Carder's videos that I found very-profound was his use of the color-checker to spot-isolate the true value and chroma. Once it's pointed-out you don't even need one physically to finally-see that "what you think is the correct color" often isn't, ...that much of nature is lower value and lower-chroma that it first appears once you start paying attention. And the apparent hue is wildly-affected by it's surroundings. Though I think if I made one I'd add a chromatic Red filter and a chromatic Green filter option to better see the values, ...it's more consistent than "squinting".
( * - Annoyingly, the architectural coatings and paint industries have multiple color-wheel systems to torment architects, designers and interior decorators;
3-axis; the traditional 3 primaries(RYB), 3 secondaries and 6 tertiaries. (Is Red a primary or a tertiary? **groan**)
4-axis; the NCS and CieLAB/CieLCh model (RYGB) similar to the Quiller Wheel that Bruce MacEvoy used.
5-axis Munsell model. (RYGBP)
plus those with their own proprietary color notation systems ...or the dreaded Pantone system. **grrrr....**
And then there's the graphic design industry that often used the HSB/HSL notation for colors, markers and digital representation.)
@@PaulFoxton But what about cyan. Cyan is missing to. Cyan and magenta and clear yellow are missing. Sadly.
@@gkar909 no such thing as “clear yellow”. Are you possibly referring to a transparent yellow dye?
“Magenta” was there, many Violet biased reds are used in place of “magenta” by most artists as even the printing industry “cheats” their theory…even on “cyan”. Make any BG and add white and there you go…actual cyan. If you want the “cyan” of sRGB name then just make your “cyan” just a bit more biased Blue…
which version of the Munsell book is best, considering cost and usefulness. thanks
Probably at the moment the best place to start is the Munsell Student Colour set, the 6th editionis the most recent and has the best chips.
This is similar to Carder's palette, although Carder also uses a dark brown (ehem, orange!) and a black. Have you tested Carder's palette yet? I am curious about the results.
I have, yes. The gamut is very limited in the greens and green-blue, but does cover a fair range and will be useful in many situations. I just can't see the need to limit yourself that much.
I know people advise limited palettes because it makes mixing simpler, but I'm of the opposite view - I think it makes mixing harder because you'll very possibly find yourself trying to reach colours that simply aren't possible with the tube paints you have.
Far better to learn a reliable way to mix, and to understand colour, then mixing is pretty easy and there's no need to limit your palette.
@@PaulFoxton Hello. There seems to colours are added ballast based on white. If even black is added to the colour, it is lower rate grey. What I think about palette of colours? If cyan, magenta, yellow and white and black are in present in this palette all is good for mixing what ever wanted.
@@gkar909 actually…that’s a limited palette as well
thanks Paul ... to be fair to Wilcox concept its about using two of each of blue yellow and red .
cerelleum and ultramarine blue , cadmium and lemon yellow ,alizarium and cadmium red .
for his greens he would use cerellum blue because it casts green lightwaves and cadmium yellow , ( projects green light waves . that is the point of his book ,,, you cant just use any blue or any yellow .
Wouldn’t it be even more fair to say that even a “split primary” palette is still limiting one’s potential color gamut even though it broadens it some from just a 3 “primary” set?
Paul, which version Munsell book are you using?
Munsell Big Book of Colour, glossy edition
Of course you won't be able to mix that chartreuse with ultramarine. The primary colors are CMY, not RYB.
The primary colours of light are CMY. There are no primaries in paint. If there were, you would be able to mix every possible colour with just those "primaries". that's demonstrably impossible, you do need a full range of paint to reach the full range of colours possible in paint.
But the CMY palette does achieve a considerably wider gamut of colours that this RBY palette, that's true.
@@PaulFoxton No, the primary colors of light (for the human eye) are RGB. The complements of RGB are CMY, which is what makes them the primary colors of ink or paint, as close as we can approximate them at least. While you could conceivably make a case that there are no true primaries (depending on your definition of the word), a reasonable universal definition is that they are the three colors that will both theoretically and practically achieve a wider color gamut than any other three-the three that will most closely result in something resembling a full color painting or print. By that definition (and by their relationship to the RGB additive primaries), the primary colors of reflective color space are certainly CMY. Your yellow and reds are reasonable choices for the M and Y, but the choice of a violet-leaning blue is way off. Do a followup video using phthalo blue green shade instead of ultramarine, and show your viewers how much closer you can get to that chartreuse.
@@llawrencebispo Sorry yes, you're right - the primaries of light are RGB. Getting my primaries confused :)
I would agree too that CMY, or close approximations in paint, will quite possibly get you a wider gamut than any other three. But it's also true that a wider range of paints will get you a much wider gamut, and I can't see a good reason to limit it.
I know a lot of people say that limited palettes make it easier to learn mixing, but I think that the opposite is the case. I think it makes it harder because low chroma colours are more difficult to get accurately (without earths, you have to bring the chroma down a LONG way) and also because large areas of the gamut aren't available, people ma find themselves struggling to mix colours that are just unreachable with the tubes they have.
I think that the root of this is that without a simple, practical and reliable method for mixing colour accurately, colour mixing will be difficult no matter what tube paints you start with.
BTW I have done some experimentation with a version of the CMY palette - I used the quinacridone rose for the magenta, which worked well, and pthalo blue too which also worked well, but found that a less orange yellow allowed a wider gamut than cad yellow - I used PY74 (as far as I can remember, without checking!)
I have some more experiments to do with that palette but it was surprising how wide the gamut was. the next palette I intend to investigate is the "split primary" palette, which I suspect will have a slightly wider gamut again - although I think there is probably a lot of overlap between the paints.
@@PaulFoxton Completely agree about the earths etc (though I do think a limited palette can reduce confusion for some beginners). For instance, yellow ochre is the yellow I'd be most loath to part with, even limited as it is. I use it far more often than any other yellow.
I have color chip envy.
:D
quinacridone
On parle toujours des trois couleurs primaires comme étant le bleu, le rouge, le jaune sauf que comme sur ta palette ne sont pas les bonnes couleurs Primaires qui sont : les PB15 ou PB16 bleu cyan - qui est un bleu ciel un peu turquoise tirant sur le vert.
- PR122 rouge magenta qui tire sur le pourpre légèrement bleuté et le PY3 qui est un jaune citron donc tirant sur le vert.
Essaie de faire un beau violet avec un bleu outremer et un rouge de cadmium et fait la même chose avec un bleu cyan et un rouge magenta tu verras la différence saute aux yeux le second mélange te donnera un superbe violet lumineux fait le même avec un jaune primaire et un rouge magenta et tu auras un orange très pure que n'importe quel autre mélange avec des jaunes et des rouge autres que les vraies primaires et tu n'auras jamais un aussi beau résultat.
Il y a pas de couleurs primaire ultimes. Est-ce qu'on va avoir un jour une vidéo qui parle du mélange des couleurs, avec ce qui est vendu et recommandé aux débutants comme couleurs primaires, sans que qqn ne vienne expliquer comment c'est en fait le cmyk la BONNE triade. J'en doute.
@@huskytail Que voulez-vous dire ? Bien entendu que les couleurs primaires existent. Ce sont les firmes industrielles qui les ont retirées du marché. Et pourquoi l'ont-ils fait d'après vous : Tout simplement parce qu'il faut, pour les créer ces couleurs, mettre des pigments pures et sans charge qui d'habitude entre dans la composition de nos tubes chez la plupart des fabricants y compris les plus connus voir les plus plébiscités.
Pour la course aux bénéfices, la majorité de ces firmes ont renoncé à les inclure sur leur nuancier. Mais en cherchant bien, on peut les trouver chez certains marchants plus confidentiels, mais sérieux.
One can get so caught up in this messing around that you forget the purpose of painting. But it's useful to test different palettes to find what suits you and your subjects best. Not worth obsessing over though. There are hundreds of ways to arrive at a colour.
Indeed there are hundreds of ways. But some are much more effective than others, and some are so ineffective that they take time away from painting. That's not something anyone wants to have to deal with, I think, and is the point I'm making here.
If you don't struggle with colour mixing, you can devote your energy to other parts of painting: Composition, expression, meaning - wherever your interest lies.
CMYW - and all problems solved. All.
Well, to be fair you can get high chroma oranges and reds, and higher chroma greens with those tube paints. But the gamut of colours you can mix is still limited compared to that you can reach with a wider range of paints.
It's just plain wrong to say you can mix every colour possible with only three tube paints. I think the people who adhere to that position must not have actually tried it and are unaware of the limitations of their beliefs. That's a real shame because it also limits what you can achieve on the canvas. Painting well is hard enough without making things even harder by limiting your range of expression.
@@PaulFoxton Thanks for your attention. Before I wrote this I just play with them. But not with tube paint. Because of this - they are not pure, but with ballasts. I have played with printer ink on white porcelain, so I for those of experiences need only cyan, magenta and yellow ink. Result of this is magnificent. From white to hue to black. All combination of colours. Transparency too. Thanks.