Four paint swatches (white, yellow ochre, vermilion, ivory black), four mixtures made from them (cool gray, dull green, pink, warm flesh tone), and a row of twelve swatches from a full palette.

Concept · Color in Painting

Limited Palettes

A limited palette is a deliberately small set of paints from which every color in a picture is mixed.

Because every mixture shares the same few ingredients, the colors hang together almost by themselves. The cost is range: without a true blue, cool colors can only be suggested, by setting grays from black and white beside warm reds and ochres.

Try it: paint a small study from white, ochre, a red and black, then add one paint at a time.
In the diagram's middle row, every mixture comes from the four paints above it.
Clear greens, violets and bright blues are out of reach, so landscapes and flowers usually need more paints.

See

Frieda Schiff (1876–1958), Later Mrs. Felix M. Warburg

Image: Made for this site · Original work