I did a quick study of a house plant today with a new palette set up.  This new palette is very similar to my usual palette, except with a few additions.  I've added cadmium yellow light, cadmium red light, rose madder, alizarin crimson and prussian blue.  I've also switched out venetian red for a brown red, which I like more.  
  I didn't have any cadmiums on my palette for a while because I felt like they were too powerful (same thing with titanium white).  I added them back on my palette to add another level of intensity for my yellows and reds, which I really enjoyed.  I still prefer silver white (zinc + flake white) instead of titanium, which I find to be too cold and chalky.  Prussian blue is a color that I used to use years ago and I like having it back on my palette.  It's basically a very deep greenish blue, that comes in handy for darker greens.  I switched out Venetian red for a different earth red called Brun Rouge because Venetian is kind of a weird earth red that I didn't find useful.
  I always want to stress that the colors you use should be colors that you find useful.  For a beginner, it's good to try out a basic palette, but remember to keep testing out new colors and find colors that work for you.

  I had a revelation this morning about the colors on my oil painting palette.  I always spend a lot of time thinking about which colors to use and which colors I actually need.  It's really hard some times because it's easy to get influenced by your artistic heroes and think that if you use the same colors, then you'll paint like them.  The truth is that you should use colors that you like.
  Of course, the only way to figure out which colors you like is to test out a bunch and then figure out which ones work for you and which ones don't.  I'm attaching a picture of my current palette below, which is combination of colors that work for me.
 Always remember that you can tailor your palette for specific subjects.  For instance, if I'm painting a landscape with a lot of greens and blues, then I'm not going to put out all my reds because I don't need them.  You could argue that you could mix reds into your greens to neutralize them, but I don't mix color that way so I know I don't need them.  And, if suddenly, a red bird lands in the scene, then I can just put a little bit of red on my palette.
  What I've realized is that it's good to learn about what colors artists of the past have used and to test out those colors as a guide.  But to progress as an artist, you'll need to think for yourself and see the world with your own eyes.  You'll eventually realize that the colors you use don't actually matter that much.  And if you've practiced enough, then you can make a great painting just using the most basic palette!

*Many of my readers may know this, but I'm colorblind so I've spent a lot of time studying color for this very reason.  Also because of this, I set up my color palette in a unique way that works for me.  I always encourage everyone to work in your own style and always experiment with color!

  I just got back today from a weekend beach trip with my family and two of my best friends.  I did some pencil sketching on my trip but I really missed my oil paints. I got back home early enough today to do a quick 6" X 8" oil sketch.  The sun was going down fast, but I always love the evening and dusk so I wanted to do a sketch during that time of day.
  For some technical information: here's a list of the colors I used for this.  Starting at the top right of the palette and circling counter-clockwise:
  -Silver White
  -Naples Yellow
  -Chrome Yellow Light
  -Chrome Yellow Deep
  -Yellow Ochre
  -Venetian Red
  -Emerald Green (Veronese Green)
  -Viridian
  -Burnt Umber
  -Ivory Black
  It's a pretty basic color palette, but you could also put out some ultramarine blue  and cobalt and have a fully realized landscape palette.  I was using a really small palette box so I decided I didn't need any blues or.  Another note about colors on your palette: try and figure out what colors you really need instead of setting up a standard palette.  And you don't really need as many colors as you think you do.  Less is more.

  I had some beautiful sunlight to paint this afternoon!  It's been so rainy the past few days, I was started to go crazy; I even thought about setting up my paints outside in the rain!
  This painting below is another painting that I've wanted to do for a few weeks now.  I'm really falling more and more in love with painting en plein air in almost an impressionist style.  I used to paint very academically, which gave me a solid foundation in drawing and proportion, but it left me feeling like I couldn't make a mistake in my paintings.  I'm still very inspired by my academic heroes, such as Bouguereau, but I'm moving in my own direction and trying to paint my own pictures.
 What always interested me about painting was being able to capture a moment in a way that a photograph never could.   From a technical point of view, I'm very impressed with photo-realism and even my new paintings have a photographic feel, but my own goal is never to compete with a photo.  Even when I do my commissioned portraits, where I have to work from photo references, I try and infuse the final painting with something more in terms of color, like and emotion.
​  What I'm saying is that the colors of real life and the atmosphere of everything is just magical and you can't capture it in a photo.  There's also a big difference between painting from life and painting from photos, but that's a topic for another blog post...