Song Sung Blue

As I painted the cacti series over the past almost two years, I explored Phthalo Blue in a more in-depth way than I ever had before.  Using a limited palette based around Phthalo taught me so much about mixing color.  If you look at my Cactus page here you'll see that all of the ones I've posted but one were done with it.  'Peligro' was mixed with Ultramarine.  You can see that it's not nearly as vibrant.

In 'Dinosaur at Twilight',  I only used Indigo for the blue hues and loved it so much that I knew I needed to explore the possibilities of it further.   Indigo is much more subdued, but no less beautiful. As a serious proponent of limited palettes, I have been playing with colors to keep in my travel box that can be used with it for good landscape color mixtures.  Living in the southwest I often need to mix shades that are muted and soft, so the new palette had to be able to mix these hues.

My little paint box.  From upper left counter clock wise: Ultramarine, Phthalo, Indigo, Sepia, New Gamboge, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna and Vermillion

Using only Indigo, Burnt Sienna, Sepia and Yellow Ochre, I painted 'Old Patches' last week.  This piece is so far from the bright, almost pulsating color I used for the Cactus paintings that I am obsessed with developing a body work to go with it.  Today I mixed up a color chart to help me get a feel for where I want this to go.  I have to admit, the whole idea of going with paler, more earthy colors has me laying awake at night with the excitement of it.

Mixed with Indigo, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna and Sepia, pictured here are a few shades that are possible with this palette.  None of them vibrant or loud, rather they are understated and mellow.

I found a blog post by artist/author Cathy Johnson that shows her use of this limited palette combination.  She calls it 'Muted Primaries,' which I think is a great name for it.  The examples of what she made trying it out in the field are beautiful.  If you love seeing the palettes used by other painters like I do, it's worth your time to check out.

Thanks for dropping in!  Alice