Zorn Palette Scales

Maria's Heart was painted using the Zorn
Palette and shows the rich flesh tones
possible with this limited palette.
Available from RS Hanna Gallery.

I often start students off with some color studies, such as these. I got the idea, of course, from Richard Schmid's Alla Prima book. I've done these several times over the years, as my palette changes, and it never ceases to provide me with a ton of new insights. At the very least it deepens my understanding of the parts of color - hue, value and saturation.

In fact, I think color charts are so important I liken them to scales that beginning music students learn to gain proficiency with their chosen instrument. If you've ever played an instrument, you know what I mean. In the exact same way, doing color "scales" can help you learn the properties of your chosen "instruments" - your tubes of paints. How they respond to other colors on your palette, how not only their value but their temperature changes with the addition of white. Doing these trains your eye to detect subtle changes in value, and also to control that value. And at the end, you're left with these fantastic charts you can use over and over again to inform your painting process.

Below are some color scales I adapted for the Zorn Palette, which I often use for portraits or figures. It's pretty exciting to see the variety of colors that can be mixed with three primaries: cad red light (traditionally vermillion), yellow ochre, ivory black (the "blue" in this lineup), and titanium white. The first scale below shows how you can achieve the "secondary" colors (outlined in white) - orange, green, and purple can be mixed from the earthy primaries (outlined in gray).

Circular Zorn Palette. The "primary" colors: cad red light,
yellow ochre and ivory black, are outlined in gray.
The "secondary" colors: orange, green and purple are outlined in white.

The next three scales really show the magic of this palette. By mixing each secondary with its complementary we can see just how wide of a range of fleshy neutrals we can achieve with this palette. Green with cad red light, orange with ivory black (again, the "blue" in this palette), and purple with yellow ochre.

The "green" palette, mixed with the complementary
cad red light. Smack in the center is what my students
have dubbed "the icky pink bandaid color." Of course
it's not "icky" but it is pretty close to a bandaid.

The top row of each of these is straight tube color, no titanium white. I used a small, diamond shaped palette knife (similar to 24T on this page). You can use a brush if you wish, but it's an awful lot of cleaning up in between each square! No thanks. Use the knife, and wipe it clean. Easy. You can tape off to make it cleaner - use 1/4" painter's tape. Get about 5 rolls.

The "orange" palette. Orange mixed
with the complementary ivory black. 

Each column should be done in turn. First square should be the top one - pure tube color. The second square I did was the bottom one. The idea is to keep it as high key as possible while retaining a hint of discrete color. To test this, squint your eyes. The bottom, lightest square should be barely discernible from the white of the canvas. But when you open them you should be able to detect color. The third square I did was the middle one, a "halfway color" between the tube color and the lightest color. The fourth square was the midpoint between the lightest and middle color, and the last was the midpoint between the tube color and middle color. By doing them in this order you can more accurately judge an even progression from dark to light in each column.

The purple palette. Purple mixed with
the complementary yellow ochre.

Each square in the bottom, lightest row should be equal in value. When you're done with your columns you can test this by squinting down at the scale. You shouldn't be able to detect any shift in value when you look at the bottom squares, but when you open your eyes you should be able to tell there is a hint of color. But don't try to compare the squares of any of the other rows against each other. They will all be different, because the values of the tube colors are all different.

Study for Leslie Rose

I did this 8"x10" study to explore the contemplative gesture and gentle expression of my wonderful model, Leslie. I'm left wondering what she's dreaming about.

A Fine Pear

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Pear puns are a riot, no? No? Ok. Painting pears is always a treat for me since they're not quite round, not quite heart shaped. Every bump and dip of irregularity is gorgeous and luscious. Almost as good as they taste. This is a little demo I did for my Explorations in Oil class. I was showing my students how to make objects feel rooted together - instead of graphic depictions merely floating in space - by introducing surrounding color into surface areas. Red into green and green into red.

Easter Bloom

Another one of my calla lilly studies. I teach a lot of color theory in my painting class and I find the topic of warm and cool temperature shifts can be very easily demonstrated in yellow objects, such as this calla lilly. Where the form turns and the petal reflects light on itself the tones warm and deepen considerably. Where they turn into the leaves surrounding them they tend to cool, picking up the greener light reflecting off those.

Yellow Lily III

Calla lilies are so fun to paint - part petal, part satin, part billowy fabric.

Yellow Lily

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Here is another painting from one of the two lily plants I brought to class a few weeks ago for my students to paint. I did a demo in class and had so much fun painting that when I brought them home I just went to town.

Pink Lily

I know, I know. I am the queen of snazzy titles for these little studies. It might not get much snazzier, so I hope you love the paintings themselves. I loved playing with the brushwork here, coaxing the waxy leaves out of the canvas, letting its delicate shadow wrap around the flower, and letting most everything else fade into the background, just suggesting the shapes that might be lurking there.

When I was in art school, I might have called something like this, "The Antidisestablishmentarianism of Public Education in Great Britain Between World Wars I and II." (Oh who am I kidding? I called everything that in art school.) If you went to art school at pretty much any university you know what I'm talking about.

Hunting for Your Perfect Line

Block-in, progression, and finished (??) detail of what's on my easel right now. 

I really love the beginning of a painting. So much so I'm often tempted to just make a few exploratory marks and leave it the way it is. Who knows; maybe that's a direction I can play with in the future. Like some extreme gesture exercise or something. My friend Bill Stoehr does something like this in a figure painting session I used to go to. Bill specializes in 8-foot-high paintings of faces and they are absolutely phenomenal. They need to be seen to be fully appreciated because they have so many layers and hidden passages smaller formats like your computer screen just don't capture all the amazing texture and depth of his work.

Bill was fascinated by the idea of capturing an entire figure or pose to one or two simple, fluid lines. He did this on his iPad with his fingertip, or on an enormous piece of paper with an equally large piece of charcoal, and it was really fun to watch. Most of the time I thought he expressed the idea brilliantly the first time, but that didn't stop him from making several dozen more explorations during the same session. He always said he was on the hunt for the perfect line. And apparently finding one didn't stop him from trying to find another. And another.

I think about Bill and his fantastic spirit of exploration when I paint sometimes, and especially when I teach painting. I wish there was a way to easily convey the simple idea that the best way to improve is to keep going, and to make mistakes. Especially make mistakes. Lots of little ones. And when you start to develop, one by one, the skills you require to bring your artistic vision into reality, keep going! Don't forget to enjoy your progress, but also, don't let a little thing like being satisfied with your work keep you from the joy of hunting for the perfect line. There is always another one to find.

Above is a progression of a new painting on my easel right now. It's probably one of the last in my red kimono series (you can find them on my website and at RS Hanna Gallery). It's a detail of a 36"x18", cropped to about 12"x 7". In a way, I could have stopped at any of these points, but I chose to stop at the third. Why? I think because at that moment my instinct for exploring and expressing this particular passage had been satisfied, and there were other parts of the painting to explore and develop. But I don't want to speak too soon. It's still not done, signed, framed and out the door. I still might get the urge to find one more perfect line here. And that would be just fine.