6:30 – We are on our way to Sweden, and have spent the night in a caravan close to the sea in Skælskør. As I write this, I am looking at the sea and the wind is blowing very hard.
On a trip like this, I always really look forward to the landscapes we are going to see. And I brought my painting supplies! I also notice that traveling and a change of scenery makes you reflect on your art or process. I can get quite nerdy about that. Yesterday, for example, during the 8-hour drive here, I suddenly became obsessed with the idea that there are far too many different colors on my palette, especially when I paint plein air. It needs to be more streamlined.
Every now and then I get an idea like that, and then I trim the colors. The last time was about 2 years ago, I think, and I had worked it back down to about 8 colors. But slowly it has grown back to about 19 pigments on my palette. There was always a specific reason why the pigment would be needed. That is too much, I think now, so that needs to go back. Now, among those 19 pigments, there are more differences than just the color itself, but also, for example, the degree of transparency. Anyway, I have decided that for the time being in Sweden, I want to narrow it down to these 7 pigments: Cadmium lemon yellow (PY35), transparent orange (DPP), magenta (PV19), ultra marine blue (PB29), phthalo blue (PB15:3), perylene black (PBk31), and titanium white (PW6).
While I am coming up with a plan like that in the car, it keeps running through my head. Is this the right selection? Do I really need phthalo blue? And then I think of the turquoise lichens on the trees and rocks in Sweden, and I can’t picture that with just ultramarine blue. And perylene black? I haven’t been using that one for very long, but it also gives a surprisingly deep twist to the deeper colors in the forest. It is a transparent dark color, which is actually a bit greenish. You can also see that when you mix it with white. You don’t get a neutral gray then. This way I mentally go over the chosen pigments.
I don’t think there are really any gaps in the color spectrum, and I think everything I see in the coming days can be mixed. So, I am really looking forward to testing this! Today we are driving on to a spot in the forest in Sweden, so I only have to be patient for a little while longer.
A note added 5 days later: Well, I have done 4 paintings after what I wrote above. I realize that there are good reasons that I added those extra pigments to my palette. Especially, I missed having the choice between transparent or opaque colors along the spectrum. For example, I want certain greens to glow from within, which I can accomplish by adding a bit of transparent yellow to the mix or a bit of Indian yellow. So, even though I could mix the exact color I was looking for, it just didn’t have the feeling I wanted. Then there is saturation. Even though most mixes I create are quite unsaturated, I do want to have the ability to make a color pop. So, also for that, I like a larger range of high-chroma pigments along the color spectrum.
Overall, it has been an interesting experiment, but I realize that limited palettes are just not for me. The only benefit was that there was less weight to carry with me. Because all those tubes do add up! But I’ll continue to do so…