Student paint palettes - Robert Stuart

The following lists are designed as student palettes, not as a critique of colours for more experienced artists. The selection is built around a Student Palette (also known as a Goya Student Palette). Other variations exist.

A limited palette (or selection of colours) is suggested. The purpose of the palette is to focus on tonal painting, developing observation skills, while delivering work with harmonised colour schemes.

Student paint palettes
Colour	Oil	Acrylic	Watercolour	Comments
Yellow	Yellow Ochre	Yellow Ochre	Yellow Ochre	If available, get Yellow Ochre Light or a lemony yellow ochre – but it MUST be a Yellow Ochre
Red	Burnt Sienna	Burnt Sienna	Burnt Sienna	Go for a red earth, burnt sienna is usual. English red, or Venitian red are suitable alternatives.
White	Titanium White Note: many brands of TW oil paints contain a little Zinc White.	Mixer White, or Mixing White Alternatives are Titanium White and Zinc White (in that order)	Use the paper for your whites If you MUST buy a white, get Zinc White or Chinese White	In oil and in acrylic paints, titanium white tends to be opaque, and zinc white tends to be slightly transparent. In watercolour titanium white is opaque, while Chinese (zinc) white is semi-opaque. Note: Chinese white is a traditional name for zinc white in watercolours.
Black	Ivory Black	Ivory Black	Lamp Black (W&N)	Grey (made from black + white) replaces blue in this scheme. Select a black described as cool or blue, avoiding warm or red or brown blacks.

Media	Linseed oil Turpentine	Acrylic fluids Acrylic gels	Water Gum Arabic
Media to Avoid	White spirit	Water		In Acrylic, use water to clean brushes, not to mix paint

Clean Up	Vegetable Oil Then wipe off oil and wash in soap and water	Water Then wipe off residue and wash in soap and water	Water Then wipe off residue and wash in soap and water

Notes:

Purchase the best quality paint you can. While artists’ quality paint is more expensive than student quality, the suggested colours are at the inexpensive end of paint ranges, and the benefits of good materials far outweigh the (small) additional cost.

Be very careful about buying paint sets. They tend to be built around student quality paint, or to be expensive. If you want a box for your watercolours, buy a box separately.

Oil Paints

Whites in oil paint: lead based oil paints are difficult to unobtain in Europe, but still available in the US. In oil, they make a very reliable paint film, but are toxic.

Zinc white, by itself, makes a very poor paint film in oil. For this reason, zinc white should never be used alone in oil painting, but always mixed with other colours.
This zinc white concern does not apply to acrylic or to watercolour paints.

Cleaning brushes

To clean up oil paint, use cheap vegetable oil. The pigment residue will fall to the bottom of your container. Keep your brushes above the base of the container and out of the gunk.

There is no need to use white spirit, unless you like the smell. The fumes often give me a hangover, and I can think of more pleasant ways of generating a headache.

Turpentine smells nicer, and is excellent for mixing with paint. It is too expensive to waste on cleaning brushes.

Watercolours

There is a tradition of using transparent watercolour. This relies on the white of the paper shining through thin paint layers to lend a glow to the work. It is vastly easier to achieve with artists’ quality paint than with cheaper paints. White paint is not, generally, used in this tradition.

If you are prepared to step away from tradition, then white paint offers some more spectacular possibilities for your work. Think seriously about using white gouache (water colour gouache, not acrylic gouache).