Gauguin's Palette

I have been doing some more reading up on Paul Gauguin, mostly because people keep telling me that I paint like him. I like that (please keep telling me that!!). Well, there is a reason I guess- he used and I use nearly the same palette. For you art geeks out there, painters often use the same colors over and over- we get used to the way they behave (down, Thalo) and we know how they work- kind of like our favorite paintbrushes. I have lots and lots of tubes of paint, but I really only use these:

 

Prussian Blue 

Burnt Umber

Pyrelene Red

Alizarin Crimson

Sap Green

Cadmium Orange

Titanium White

 

Old Paul used:

 

Red Ochre

Emerald Green

Cobalt Violet 

Zinc or Lead White

 This is a picture of Paul Gauguin's Palette! Super messy...and muddy colors too.

 

Here is a snap of Elaine Kehew's palette. Also pretty messy. I think that is just how it goes. 

 

Lots of exact similarities, and even the differences are so close as to be negligible. Although, how he ever lived without cadmium orange, I don't know. Sigh. I could talk about paint all day and not get bored. One of my favorite colors (which I ran out of here in Nairobi) is called Indian Yellow. The original Indian Yellow pigment was made by penning cows in and feeding them nothing but mangoes. Then, the Indians would take the urine from these cows, let it evaporate, and use the dry residue to mix with oil or egg tempera for the distinctive, brilliant, transparent Indian Yellow.

 

That's all for today- for more on great palette stories, here's an excellent link http://www.painterskeys.com