Use a small number of tube colors

by Patrick O’Brien

Here’s the tube colors I use:

• white

• cadmium yellow

• cadmium red

• ultramarine blue

• burnt sienna

• raw umber

• yellow ochre

In certain situations I might need:

• alizarin crimson

• cerulean blue

• black

This palette, while some people might call it “limited,” does not limit your paintings’ colors.

With this minimal number of tube colors:

• you can mix almost any color with accuracy.

• You are much less likely to get mud.

• You can reproduce a previously mixed color more easily. Other tube colors are mixtures in themselves, and when you mix with them it’s easy to lose track of the color you were going for. The results can be unpredictable, hard to reproduce, and muddy.

• Besides, it’s cheaper, easier and less confusing to have fewer tubes.

There are certain colors that are hard to mix with this pallet. Especially man-made colors such as the green of a highway sign. Also, the blue of a tropical sea requires a yellowish blue such as cerulean. Certain flowers might require more saturated colors such as alizarin crimson.