Zorn Limited Palette

My early experiences with color in school always left me feeling a little unfulfilled. Like I was always using the wrong tube colors for the effect I wanted. I needed to find a starting point. Those basic colors with which to paint that would give me what I wanted...

Anders Zorn used a limited color palette almost exclusively. The tube colors of which I have seen vary depending on where your information is coming from. In any case the essence of the palette remains constant.

White
Ivory Black
Yellow Ochre
Red

The whites have ranged from Flake to Titanium, Flake being the more traditional choice.

Ivory Black is the standard, however I have seen this subdivided into warm and cool black mixtures.

Yellow Ochre remains unchanged.

Red was traditionally Vermillion but Cadmium Red is the adopted standard. I have seen the reds vary between Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Red Medium, and Cadmium Scarlet.

This is a great starting palette for figurative painting. It may seem basic at first but with a strong understanding of color theory you can get a surprisingly wide range of colors from this strictly limited palette.

Crossroads

As an artist you face infinite possibilities when it comes to creating your art. These possibilities can be limited by a number of things; content, intent, style, material, all of which may already be set and some that may not be. Either way, when you encounter a situation where you can go left or right. Just go. Make a decision and proceed. 

In other words...

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"  -Yogi Berra

Donato Giancola had a great post about this over on Muddy Colors, you can read it here.