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I have been working on my color charts for the past several weeks. It has been a bit tedious, but like many tedious tasks in life, it is worth it in the end. It’s been something I’ve been meaning to do for years. I remember back in college making color charts for my color theory class. That memory alone kept me from tackling the project! When I started painting seriously again and took my first workshop at Scottsdale Artists School, my instructor, Robert Lemler talked about the importance of making the charts and then again recently I was reading through Richard Schmid’s book  Alla Prima and he talks at length about doing them. So, I got down to it a few weeks back.

First step was buying 16 x 20 mat white board. Each board makes two charts. I decided to make 10 charts, one for each of my colors on my palette: Cadmium Yellow Lemon, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Permanent Red, Alizarin Crimson, Transparent Oxide Red, Terra Rosa, Burnt Sienna, Viridian, Ultramarine Blue and Cobalt Blue. I used artist tape in 1/2 inch width to tape off one inch squares – 10 across and 6 down.

Once that was complete the mixing began. For example the Cad Yellow Lemon chart would have pure color in the first column, then using Titanium White to create a value scale with the bottom square being the lightest value. The next column mixes Cad Yellow Lemon with Cad Yellow Deep and the square in that column are values of that combination. The third column mixes Cad Yellow Lemon with Permanent Red, etc. etc.

After a few weeks, it is safe to remove the tape as the paint should be dry enough. During this process, although it is time consuming and tedious, I made a few interesting discoveries about my palette colors. It was fun to take the time to mix all the colors and values to see what my paints are capable of.  The process does teach you the variety of colors available with a limited palette. It also teaches/reminds you of how each color behaves, its transparency, drying time, etc. And now I have them for reference to save mixing time in the future.