Limited Palettes, Color Schemes & Neutrals

Adding neutrals into color schemes.

Working with full intensity hues is a great way to explore the dynamics of color schemes and to learn the grayscale values of the pigments.  When playing The Color Scheme Game, I limited myself to undiluted pigments using only enough water for the paint to flow.  Generally I mix enough water and pigment to obtain a viscosity close to the Half and Half I put in my coffee.

I am now including neutrals and diluted mixes when playing The Color Scheme Game.  In the study of the Thanksgiving Turkey Neck Bones, my Color Scheme is Analogous with One Near Complement. ( red-violet, violet, blue-violet and yellow-green).  I mixed a cool yellow and a cool blue to make my yellow-green.  A cool red and a warm blue (Ultramarine Blue) were mixed for all of the violet variations.  I left the bones for last.  To obtain the neutrals of the bones I mixed dilutions of the violets and the yellow-green.

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Palette: four tubes of pigment – cool yellow, cool blue, warm blue, cool red.  That’s it!

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Image: Thanksgiving Turkey Neck Bones – drawn first with fountain pen filled with Noodler’s Black Ink, followed by washes of watercolor.