By oil colors, I mean the tubes of paint, and not a complete guide to how to paint in oils (the latter topic being something I don’t feel I’m qualified to write). This guide is necessary because of all the bad advice floating around the internet and in how-to books on oil painting.
It’s my opinion that the paint itself is the least important part of oil painting. Of course you can’t paint without paint, but which brands or colors you use doesn't matter as much as the skill of the artist, and if you need to save money, you’re better off saving money on paint than on brushes because a wide assortment of decent brushes is more important than using the “best” paint, if there even is such a thing.
I’ve never used “student quality” paint, and given the fact that you can buy an inexpensive artist’s brand such as Grumbacher for only a little bit more than Winton (the most ubiquitous brand of student quality paint), I say go for the Grumbacher. And while I don’t have enough different brands of paint in the same colors to say for certain which brands are better than others, I do have many tubes of white paint, and I can’t tell the difference between Grumbacher Titanium White Soft Formula and the more expensive Winsor & Newton Titanium White. Also, I’m almost certain that super-premium brands such as Old Holland or Williamsburg are a scam.
With respect to the “palette” of colors you use, artists make a really big deal about this, and every how-to book will have each artist’s personal opinion of what colors are “required.” I get the impression that recommended palettes are based on superstition and habit rather than a real solid scientific analysis of which colors are really the best. In fact, very few colors are needed to paint, and fewer even are needed to learn how to paint. Much can be learned about painting with just a tube of white and a tube of black. If your palette is so “limited” that you can’t mix certain colors, this won’t be apparent in the hands of a skilled artist, and lack of such colors will usually be interpreted as an artistic choice, and the unnatural predominance of other colors will be interpreted as good “color harmony.”
Artists probably go through stages with respect to how many different colors they use. Beginners start out with only a few colors because they’re not committed enough to spend hundreds of dollars on a large number of tubes of paint. Intermediate artists have a very large palette of colors because they are still experimenting and learning about what’s available to them. Finally, the experienced artist will have a smaller palette of colors than the intermediate artist because he will have figured out which colors are useful to his own style of painting and which are superfluous. Some experienced artists use a very small palette indeed, while other experienced artists use an expanded palette. I doubt that anyone can tell from looking at a painting how many different tubes of paint were used in its making.
It is clear that the concept of the “limited palette” has become quite trendy. Limited palette advocates look down upon those who used more expanded palettes as being less worthy as artists. My advice is to ignore this religion-like nonsense. There is nothing particularly meritorious about mixing a shade yourself instead of using the same shade directly out of a tube. That is not art. You can take any swatch of color into a store that sells house paints, and they will mix up an exact match for you. The guys who work at house paint stores are not artists. On the other hand, if yellow ochre seems like a mysterious color that you could never mix yourself from cadmium yellow and cadmium red, then you need to learn more about color theory. You will never be a good painter if you don’t know how to mix something like yellow ochre.
With respect to color theory, I highly recommend Googling for the Munsell Color System. You will find a more scientific and useful explanation of color theory than you will find in any how-to oil painting book.
My experience in painting is with landscape, so my advice is weighted in favor of landscape painting, but it probably applies to still life as well. What I know about figure painting is that all you need to paint flesh and hair are the following four colors: yellow ochre, Indian red, titanium white and ivory black. You only need other colors for painting clothes and backgrounds, and maybe blue for blue-eyed or green-eyed people, but be aware that blue eyes are more often a bluish shade of gray rather than a bright phthalo blue. You can fake blue eyes with just a gray mixed from black and white, which will appear to be blue compared to the warmer colors used everywhere else in the painting.
TITANIUM WHITE
Titanium is the only white that you need. Zinc white is a weak color with poor opacity and it makes a brittle paint film that’s prone to cracking. Lead white, also called flake white or cremnitz white, is not as opaque as titanium white, it’s less permanent (darkening with age and reacting poorly with certain other pigments) and it’s known to cause health problems if you accidentally ingest it. So stick to titanium white.
You should buy a large tube of white because it’s the most commonly used color. As I noted in the introduction, I believe that Grumbacher Titanium White (Soft Formula) is a best value.
BLACK
Black, for some reason, has become a controversial color. Until rather recently, black was always considered an essential staple color for any painter. But today, there are many advice-givers insisting that you shouldn’t use black, that a tube of black paint is some evil malevolent force that will ruin any painting that it touches.
It’s true that black can be used improperly, but that applies to every other color as well. Some of the anti-black people seem to believe that they need to discourage the use of black lest a potential Mona Lisa be ruined by overuse of black. I’d like to assure these people that by the time an artist is skilled enough to paint a masterpiece he will have learned the proper use of black.
I could never do without black myself, because I always use it to lower the chroma of my colors, and black plus cadmium yellow light, or black plus white plus cadmium yellow light makes a very nice chartreuse which I commonly use in my paintings.
It’s also a real pain in the *** to mix a dark neutral from other colors. It will come out too blue or too red or too green or too magenta or orange (depending on what colors use you are using to mix black). It’s a lot more convenient to have black pre-mixed in a tube.
All blacks tend to veer toward a bluish hue; this problem can be corrected by adding a slight amount of burnt sienna or red iron oxide, but don’t overdo it or you will have a color more like burnt umber than black.
Ivory Black
This is the black I most recommend as a first black. It’s a very weak black that won’t overwhelm the colors you mix it into. It also seems to mix the most neutral grays. Mars black and lamp black both mix colder grays.
Lamp Black
Lamp black is much more powerful than ivory black and is useful for painting wet on wet because its strength will overpower the wet layer below it. It’s handy to have whenever you need a really dark black.
Mars Black
Mars black appears slightly grayish next to lamp black, but it has the best reputation for making a strong paint film. Mars black, therefore, is the best black to use for painting large black areas, but that is something you would rarely do in a landscape painting.
Gamblin Chromatic Black
I’ve never actually used this color. It’s designed for people who won’t use black because they believe that a dark neutral mixed from other colors has special properties not present in ivory black. Instead of a black pigment, it contains a mix of phthalo green yellow shade and quinacridone.
Until someone does an actual experiment in which they paint one painting with ivory black and another painting with Gamblin Chromatic Black and see if people can tell the difference, I’m going to assume that this color is a gimmick that’s of no real use.
BRIGHT YELLOW
You need a bright yellow, although you can get by with an earth colors palette which uses yellow ochre, however such a palette will prevent you from mixing many colors which do appear in nature.
Cadmium Yellow Light
This is the must-have yellow: an essential color for mixing greens. Cadmium Yellow Light usually refers to the most greenish shade of cadmium yellow that a paint manufacturer sells.
Winsor and Newton has two shades of this color: Cadmium Lemon and Cadmium Yellow Pale, the latter being the warmer (more orangeish) shade. I find them both useful to have.
For painters on a budget, I recommend Grumbacher Cadmium-Barium Yellow Light. The different name tells us that the cadmium is co-precipitated with a barium compound in order to extend the more expensive cadmium. So yes, the Grumbacher color is not as potent as a pure cadmium, but it’s potent enough if the high price of pure cadmium scares you away, and it’s a lot better than any substitute bright yellow.
Warmer shades of cadmium yellow
There are a lot of different shades of cadmium yellows and oranges that you can buy. You can get by with mixing such shades from cadmium yellow light and cadmium red light, but having a variety of cadmium tubes could come in handy and also give you brighter intermediate shades.
Hansa Yellow
This refers to a family of pigments with chemical names such as arylide yellow and diarylide yellow.
This is a color I don’t recommend. A cheap cadmium yellow is better than an expensive Hansa yellow, and cheap Hansa yellows of the type found in student grade paints are too weak to bother with.
If you are going to buy a Hansa yellow, the only one you want is identified as having pigment PY74 which has the best combination of powerfulness and permanence of the Hansa yellows. Winsor Yellow contains this pigment, as does M. Graham Azo Yellow.
Indian Yellow Hue
All Indian yellows are hues, because the real color is no longer produced. This also means that no two Indian yellows are alike, but it always indicates a transparent color of a yellow-orange hue. I have Winsor and Newton Indian Yellow which is occasionally useful for glazing; if I accidentally painted something too cool a shade of green, glazing Indian yellow over it will warm it up. But this is far from a must-have color.
BRIGHT ORANGE
I don’t own a tube of bright orange paint so I can’t comment.
BRIGHT RED
For landscape painting this is a color you can get by without having. It’s only needed to paint bright red flowers or the occasional fall foliage. You can often make do with Indian red.
Cadmium Red Light
This is the most commonly recommended shade of cadmium red. It’s an orangeish tomato-colored red. Winsor and Newton calls this color Cadmium Scarlet.
Cadmium Red Medium
A fire engine red. You can mix this color from cadmium red light and quinacridone, but it won’t be as opaque or powerful.
Organic reds
The best organic substitute for cadmium red is pyrrole red. Pyrrole pigments are contained in various Winsor and Newton colors such as Scarlet Lake, Bright Red, Winsor Red, so Winsor and Newton is definitely the brand to buy if you insist on trying a cadmium substitute. I don’t own a tube of pyrrole red, so I can’t say how well or poorly it compares to genuine cadmium red.
BLUE
French Ultramarine Blue
This is the most commonly recommended blue. It’s a violet shade of blue. It mixes dull shades of green because it has too much violet in it, although a case can be made that the greens you get from cadmium yellow light and ultramarine blue are bright enough to represent any greens from nature.
The biggest weakness of French ultramarine is that it doesn’t mix a very bright sky blue. French ultramarine is more violet than sky color, so some yellow or green must be mixed with it to get it the correct shade. The resulting blue will not be super-bright. This can be a benefit for beginners who often mix colors that are too highly saturated.
French ultramarine is a weak color which doesn’t overpower what you mix it into, once again making it a good color for beginners.
Phthalo Blue
There are actually two shades of this color, a red shade and a green shade. The red shade is good if this is going to be your only shade of blue, otherwise I recommend the green shade in order to distinguish it from French ultramarine, and because the green shade plus white gives you a great color for blue skies.
The problem with phthalo blue is that it’s so powerful and even a tiny bit of it can overwhelm anything you mix it into. It’s a very difficult color to work with.
Holbein Cerulean Blue Hue
This is a mixture of phthalo blue green shade and titanium white. I use it instead of pure phthalo blue because it’s easier to mix colors with it, being not as overwhelmingly powerful.
Cobalt Blue
I don’t own a tube of this because it’s very expensive and it doesn’t do anything you can’t do with phthalo blue.
Cerulean Blue
I don’t own a tube of this because it’s very expensive and it doesn’t do anything you can’t do with phthalo blue.
GREEN
There is surprising controversy regarding green. There are those who say that you don’t need it because you can mix greens from cadmium yellow light and blue. I disagree strongly, and find greens to be quite useful for landscape paintings.
Viridian
Viridian is a bluish shade of green. This is the easiest green to use because, like French ultramarine, it’s a weak color that doesn’t overwhelm what you mix it into. But it’s also expensive. So save yourself some money and buy Grumbacher viridian. I wouldn’t worry if the Grumbacher viridian has a little bit less pigment load because the whole reason to use viridian in the first place is that it’s weaker than phthalo green.
Phthalo Green Blue Shade
There are actually two shades of phthalo green. The blue shade is approximately the same hue as viridian, but with higher saturation and many times more powerful. Like phthalo blue, phthalo green is a very difficult mixing color because even the slightest amount will overpower what you are mixing it into.
I find that the best way to use phthalo green is to mix a very small amount into a much larger amount of yellow ochre, and then use that color to mix other shades of green.
Chromium Oxide Green
This is surely the primary green used by the early Hudson River School painters because viridian wasn’t developed until 1859.
Compared to viridian, chromium oxide green is more opaque and is an intermediate hue of green, not too yellow and not too blue. It’s a good forest green. Because it has lower chroma than the green you get from mixing cadmium yellow light with phthalo green, people often think of this as a green earth color. It’s not a necessary color, but it can actually be quite useful, and I think it’s a good green for a beginner to learn color theory and to avoid the color mixing accidents you can have using phthalo green.
Don’t buy the Winsor and Newton chromium oxide green. Winsor and Newton prices this color in the same series as the cadmiums, while every other company sells this for a lower price. Save your money.
Phthalo Green Yellow Shade
This shade of phthalo is less commonly used than the blue shade. It’s quite a bit yellower than the blue shade (in contrast to the two shades of phthalo blue which are much closer to each other). It’s a weaker and less overpowering color, but nevertheless I haven’t found it useful because a transparent green is less useful in this hue.
Nickel Barium Titanium Primrose
That’s quite a name! Holbein calls it Nickel Yellow, but not all nickel yellows contain this specific pigment. I bought a tube of this because the author of an oil painting book recommended it. What a waste of money. This particular shade of primrose can be obtained by mixing cadmium lemon, titanium white, and just the very slightest hint of viridian or phthalo. Although nearly as expensive as cadmium lemon, it’s a much weaker and less versatile mixing color.
Cadmium Green
Not its own pigment, but a convenience mixture of cadmium yellow and something else. Holbein uses viridian to mix its cadmium greens. Holbein Cadmium Green Light is an especially useful color because this chartreuse hue of green is annoying to mix yourself because you need to mix only a tiny amount of green into the cadmium yellow and it’s easy to accidentally use too much green and ruin a pile of cadmium yellow.
I definitely recommend this color for landscape painting. Obviously it’s not a must-have color because you can mix it yourself, but it’s certainly a lot more useful than nickel barium titanium primrose.
MAGENTA
There are few things in nature that are magenta, but it’s a must-have mixing color.
Quinacridone
I don’t list the exact shade because it comes in many different shades. The color that Winsor and Newton calls Permanent Rose is a quinacridone. As the name implies, if you mix this color with a little titanium white, you get something that’s rose-colored. That’s the original color of roses before they started breeding them to be red. You may also use a more magenta shade of quinacridone such as Grumbacher Thio Violet (which is magenta and not violet) or what Winsor and Newton calls Quinacridone Magenta.
Alizarin Crimson
This is one of the most popular colors. I don’t know why. True alizarin crimson is not lightfast and will fade from your paintings eventually. This is not a color that you need, and ignore any advice in a how-to book that recommends it. Winsor and Newton Permanent Rose is approximately the same hue as alizarin crimson.
VIOLET
Violet is not a must-have color. You can mix it from quinacridone and French ultramarine. There aren’t that many purple things in the world to paint, but sometimes you want to add this hue to shadows.
Dioxazine Violet
The least expensive, brightest, and most powerful violet. But not the most lightfast. Dioxazine is less lightfast than the phthalos or quinacridones, but Winsor and Newton still rates it as an A for permanence.
Mineral Violets
Cobalt violet is a very expensive color. I don’t think you need to run out and buy a tube. Manganese violet is said to be a good less expensive substitute for cobalt violet. Both of these pigments are much weaker than dioxazine, but are more lightfast.
EARTH COLORS
Sure, you can mix these colors from cadmiums, but why? It’s a lot more convenient and a lot less expensive to use earth colors.
Yellow Ochre
A must-have color! This color commonly appears in nature and it’s one of the few colors that you might occasionally apply to the canvas straight out of the tube.
Winsor and Newton has four different yellow ochres which can be very confusing. The theory behind this variety is that there are two natural yellow ochres and two synthetic yellow ochres (which really ought to be called mars yellows). I prefer the synthetic variety. The lighter shade of synthetic yellow ochre, Yellow Ochre Pale, is best for mixing greens, while the darker shade, Gold Ochre, is better for mixing other earth shades. As the name implies, the “Gold Ochre” is slightly more reddish and the Yellow Ochre Pale is slightly more greenish, but it’s a very subtle difference.
Grumbacher saves you this bewildering array of choices by offering only a single shade of yellow ochre which is a mix of synthetic and natural ochres and is color that’s in between the two Winsor and Newton shades.
Burnt Sienna/Red Iron Oxide
Another must-have color! Winsor and Newton Burnt Sienna is really a synthetic red iron oxide and not a true burnt sienna. I prefer the synthetic red iron oxide.
This is an orangeish-reddish color that is great for mixing all shades of browns, and is also great for neutralizing the coolness of grays mixed from black and white. When this color is diluted with a lot of medium, it makes a glaze that’s a surprisingly bright shade of orange.
Umber
I have some tubes of umbers, but I stopped using them. Burnt umber is the same hue as burnt sienna, so you get this color just by mixing ivory black with burnt sienna. Adding a little yellow ochre to the mix then gives you something like raw umber.
Indian Red/Venetian Red
Indian red is cooler than venetian red, both are opaque. I find Indian red a very useful color for mixing earth shades that are redder than burnt sienna. You seldom see Indian red on lists of must-have palette colors these days, but John Carlson recommended it in his old-school book on landscape painting.
GRAYS
“Gray” is the proper American spelling, but most paint manufacturers prefer to spell it “grey” with an “e.”
Of course you can mix grays yourself, but it’s incredibly convenient to have them pre-mixed for you. Gamblin has a series of three grays named Portland Grey Light, Portland Grey Medium, and Portland Grey Dark.
I prefer Holbein Neutral Grey as an alternative to Portland Grey Light because Holbein uses poppyseed oil which yellows less than linseed oil, and non yellowing oil is most appropriate for a light shade of gray.
I don't understand why paint manufacturers other than Gamblin don't offer a complete lineup of premixed grays.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The most basic palette I recommend for those starting out is:
Grumbacher Titanium White (Soft Formula)
Ivory black
Indian red
Yellow ochre
Cadmium-barium yellow light
Chromium green oxide
French ultramarine blue
When you’re ready to add more colors, I recommend:
Burnt sienna/transparent red oxide
Permanent Rose
Holbein Cerulean Blue Hue
Dioxazine violet
Gamblin Portland Grey Dark
Gamblin Portland Grey Medium
Holbein Neutral Grey
A yellowish shade of cadmium green
Phthalo green or viridian
Cadmium Red Light
Lamp black or mars black
Additional cadmium yellows
Additional yellow ochres
But remember that these are just suggestions and that there’s no single correct palette of colors to use.
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