Color Studies

I've been spending some of the bit of extra time I have on my hands these days revisiting color studies.

The study and drive for an increased color understanding is a life-long pursuit! It - thankfully - never ends. I've been working on my own version of Mr. Schmid's color charts as you see on the left, as well as other exercises which I'll explain....

Though I've done studies similar to this before, at this point in time it is helping me to recharge my brain on the possibilities of color mixtures and to simplify my pallet. I'm thinking this is both coloristically and economically a great move. So now I have several versions of the primaries and then what I call adjectival colors, for when I need an anomalous color or am just being too lazy to mix, or for quick sketches. My rules for paring down include not compromising on the saturation of any color - if that means adding another tube of something - fine. Also permanence, clarity, transparency, etc. My pallet consists of primarily Old Holland and Winsor & Newton with a couple of colors in Sennelier and Holbein.