Colour Palette

With only a few colours, an artist can create a strong sense of harmony in a painting. Typically a limited palette includes white, yellow ochre, a warm red, black, and burnt umber. When a painting calls for more brightness or variety, a full colour palette adding blues, greens, and more vibrant hues can be used. Alla prima, Italian for “first attempt”, is a rapid painting technique where layers of paint are added while the prior layers are still wet. In contrast, with long studies, each layer of paint is allowed to dry before adding the next.