Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A transparent colour, with weak tinting strength and a fast drying time. It is greener and paler than ultramarine. Useful for skies and for mixing greens; very expensive, but good for glazing.
Yellow ochre
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A fairly opaque colour, with weak tinting strength, medium-to-slow drying time, and a dark yellow hue verging on brown. Indispensable for landscape painting and for toning down mixtures.
Raw sienna
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A transparent colour, with weak tinting strength and fast-to-medium drying time. A warmer hue than yellow ochre. Mixes well, and is excellent for glazing.
Burnt sienna
Permanence excellent (ASTM I) A transparent colour, with strong tinting strength, fast-to-medium drying time, and a rich, reddish-brown hue. It is useful for modifying sky colours, and is a good glazing colour.
Permanent rose
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A very transparent colour, with very high tinting strength, slow drying time, and a bright pink-red hue with a violet tinge. A light-fast alternative to alizarin crimson; though expensive, a little goes a long way.
Viridian
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A transparent colour, with good tinting strength, slow drying time, and bright, deep green hue with a bluish tinge. Mix with white to make cool greens.
Cadmium red
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). An opaque colour, with good tinting strength, slow drying time, and a bright, warm red hue. A strong, pure pigment.
Cadmium yellow
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). An opaque colour, with good tinting strength, slow drying time, and a warm hue with a hint of orange. Mix with cadmium red to form cadmium orange.
Lemon yellow
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A transparent colour, with good tinting strength, medium drying time, and a cool, pale yellow hue. Forms delicate, cool greens when mixed with blues.
Winsor violet
Starter palette
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A transparent colour, with high tinting strength, medium drying time, and a strong, warm hue. Very useful for modifying blues in skies, and making greys with yellows, browns and greens.
The ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) codes for lightfastness:
ASTM l: excellent lightfastness
ASTM ll: very good lightfastness
ASTM Ill: not sufficiently lightfast
Variations
Roy Freer’s work uses rich, saturated hues. He sees his subjects in terms of colour, rather than tone. This painting employs his ‘spectrum palette’, which consists of lemon yellow, cadmium yellow yellow ochre, cadmium orange, vermilion, rose madder, cobalt blue, cobalt violet and viridian.
Roy Freer
Blue Pathways
Oil on canvas
100 × 120cm (40 × 48in)
Pigments may vary both in their hue and handling characteristics, according to the manufacturer. This applies particularly to the earth colours -ochres, umbers and siennas – which are natural pigments and vary in hue according to source. Some burnt siennas, for example, are yellowish, while others have a reddish tint.
Terre verte
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A transparent colour, with low tinting strength, medium-to-slow drying time, and a pale greenish-grey hue. An excellent green for landscapes, it is best applied in thin glazes.
Raw umber
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A transparent colour, with good tinting strength, fast drying time, and a greenish-brown hue. Raw umber is a very useful colour for underpainting, as it dries rapidly.
Phthalocyanine blue
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). A transparent colour, with a very high tinting strength, medium-to-slow drying time, and a very bright, deep blue hue. More permanent and more intense than Prussian blue.
Alizarin crimson
Permanence very weak (ASTM III). A very transparent colour, with high tinting strength, very slow drying time, and a cool, slightly bluish-red hue. It tends to fade in thin washes, or when mixed with white.
Ivory black
Permanence excellent (ASTM I). An opaque colour, with good tinting strength, very slow drying time, and a slight brown tinge. Mixing ivory black with yellow makes a versatile green.
Auxiliary colours
Should you wish to augment your basic palette with additional colours for particular subjects, you may find some of the colours shown here useful.
| BINDERS FOR OILS | Binders, mediums and diluents are the various fluids that are either combined with the pigment at the manufacturing stage or added to the tube colour to facilitate the application of paint to the support. |
Binder composition
Pigments for oil paints are ground into a drying vegetable oil, which is known as a vehicle or binder. When bound, the pigment particles are suspended in the oil and can be easily brushed onto the painting surface. When the oil has dried by absorbing oxygen, it seals the pigment to the surface.
Linseed oil
This oil, pressed from the seeds of the flax plant, is available in several forms, and acts both