Basic Oil Paint Palette Colors

The color group listed uses cadmium red and cadmium yellow instead of the earth tones yellow ochre and burnt sienna.

Basic oil paint palette colors.

Lemon yellow cool yellow cadmium orange secondary dioxiane purple secondary yellow orche earth tone burnt umber earth tone this palette gives you all the basic colors to build secondary or tertiary colors. Complementary hues are directly across from each other on the color wheel. This palette only has three tube colors a red a blue and a yellow the three primary colors plus white. Option 1 for limited palette earth tone based white.

You want two of each because you want to have a warm and cool version of each color. As you add white black and complementary colors to your pure hues you change their values and their intensities in very specific ways. From these three basic colors you can create a great range of color mixes greens purples and oranges the three secondary colors so you can match colors in nature as well as other subjects such as still life objects. Having six primary colors rather than just three also gives you a larger range of colors available to use in mixing.

If you want to mix all your colors buy two reds two blues two yellows and a white. It is separated into two halves the first set of co. For centuries artists have toned lay a thin wash of paint down their canvas with warm brown colors making the shift in color perception from the palette to the canvas very slight. Remember colors appear to change based on their surroundings so if you mix your paint colors on a brown palette then apply them to a white canvas they re going to look different than you intended.

Before we get too far in you ll need to start thinking about paint color differently you must understand that every oil paint manufactured color actually has a main color the one you see and another color that is part of a filler and blend. Whether it s watercolor acrylic or oil my paint palette tends to follow a pretty basic formula warm and cool versions of each of the primary colors yellow red blue a green or two earth colors and depending on the medium white. Here s an intro to the color palette that i recommend using for both beginners and experienced painters. For example the complement to orange is blue.

To those shade mixtures you add white to make tones. Transparent oxide yellow replaces yellow ochre transparent oxide orange replaces raw sienna transparent oxide red replaces burnt sienna phthalo blue green shade cool.