I have been painting a long time (since 1973 when I started studying with Frank Mason at the Art Students League), and since that time I had been using pretty much the same palette, or line-up of colors. This palette was a "Cadmium Palette", meaning I used the full range of cadmiums paints, from cadmium yellow lemon to cadmium red deep. Along with the cadmium colors, I used alizarin crimson, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, raw umber, burnt umber, titanium white (of flake) and ivory black. Under my standard line-up, I made a series of grays using black and white.
When we built our new studio, I decided to expand my knowledge of color a bit, and I started trying different colors in my line-up. Most of the above palettes were used in different "Open" Figure/Portrait Sessions. The above pictures show some of my experiments. As you can see, the grayscale is the one consistency. I learned that there are other colors that I now use and love. Terra Rosa, Viridian, Orange Ochre, and Cadmium Brown are among some of them. Trying new colors keeps you from falling into a formula. It keeps you thinking and problem solving as use paint.
