Breaking the Color Addiction

If you have ever wondered why you’re packing a dozen or more tubes of colors each time you go out plein air painting, consider just bringing these four tubes of color.

Yup, I like Gamblin paints but your brand will work just fine.

I used to have a hard time leaving any of my colors at home, it didn’t take long to discover that that insecurity was a total waste of my time and paint. Eventually it became clear that all I needed was a tube of cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red medium, phthalo blue and titanium white. 

It wasn’t easy to leave all my other colors behind but after all, color precision is more a studio painting thing. Out in the field I don’t want to waste a lot of time setting up my palette or crowding my palette with a lot of different colors. A strong red, yellow, blue and white is all I need.

Here's a bunch of color possibilities that I mixed up using different combinations of cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red medium, phthalo blue and titanium white. Really nice grays, umbers, siennas, viridian though olive greens, warm and cool blues and violet.