Fleshing it out, from traditional to transitional

One should take note that there is no Cadmium Yellow in any of the color strings, there is also no Burnt Umber which has no place in skin-tones or shadows. To avoid canard-merde, shadow tones here are made Alizarin Crimson and Sap Green not earths. It is interesting to see how his palette evolves from the portrait of Robert Beverly Hale done in the mid 1970s to the subway paintings done in this century.

We watched Daniel demo this palette array many times in person. It was a ritual for him and got his mind in the right place to paint. Today however, there are convenience mixtures that cover a lot of the same ground. Nelson Shanks and the New England School have around thirty pigments at their disposal. Nelson’s palette assortment is as follows with our recommendations for deletions, replacements, and additions. We use mostly Sennelier and Schmincke Mussini for smaller figurative traditional works, Rembrandt and M.Graham for the large abstract gallery paintings.

Nelson’s palette was Cadmium heavy but his mixtures were not, he tuned them down with the Siennas, Raw Umber and Yellow Ochre. He then used the Modern Organic Reds, Red Oranges and Maroons, to adjust the chroma. Early on the Cadmiums were used sparing in finely tuned mixtures; later he used them to model small transitional planes using stumbles and glazes. Nelson used Flake White, which is a mixture of Lead White and Zinc, the alternative is a mixture of Zinc White with a little Titanium. Straight Titanium and untuned Cadmiums are mortal enemies making everything to chalky.

This is the Bentley of high chroma palettes, replacing most of the cadmiums with high octane synthetic organics like Pyrrole’s, Naphthol’s and Hansa’s; it is Henry Hensche’s New England palette on steroids. This suggested array is made up mainly of Sennelier Extra-Fine oils with many proprietary mixtures making this palette extremely unique. However, there is a catch-22, these hybrid mixtures like Cobalt Violet hue, Cobalt Blue hue, and Cobalt Turquoise hue have far more tinting strength than their single pigment namesakes but will not mix the same. One can work around this with practice or one can choose brands like Rembrandt or Schmincke Mussini that have a more predictable mixing equation.

The bottom line depends on how the paint feels on your brush and the vibrancy one is after. If you are looking for a more traditional approach, then brands like Schmincke Mussini with Damar Resin and a little gloss would an excellent choice. If you are looking for a more traditional feel without Damar Resin then Rembrandt, M. Graham or Michael Harding are a good fit. If you want maximum vibrancy and less gloss, then Sennelier’s Safflower Oil binder and modern organic mixtures are the order of the day.

If unique is what you seek then mix and match to come up with your personal palette.