Choosing a colour palette

Sometimes its nice to do some painting that you know isn’t going to end up on the wall.

These little colour swatches are the perfect exercise to hone my colour knowledge, help develop a palette for future work and they make for a pleasant mindful way to be creative without committing to a whole painting session.

I had a play with three of my favourite colours-of-the-moment; Aqua Light Green (Matisse), Quinacridone Nickle Azo Gold (Golden) and Medium Magenta (Golden). As you can see there are endless variations from just these three colours, plus black and white. By using a limited colour palette like this you can create a painting with a lot of interesting colours and contrasts yet they harmonise perfectly because they are all variations of one another.