Colours

Just for fun, what kind of colours do you prefer working with? For example, I almost never use black, because it muddies things, but rather I use Payne's gray . It's *nearly* black, with blue and other stuff, depending on the brand, but if I use it to darken other pigments, it doesn't tend to muddy as much. It's great for a transparent glaze too.

even when I'm working digitally, I tend to tint my blacks and whites rather than using them pure.

For the most part, I tend to use a warm, earth tone based palette, traditionally or digitally (though when I do pastiches, of course, I have to use the palette of the original artist)

I tend to use black only to darken a tertiary colour. That way you keep your shadows much more realistic and natural.

I really don't like painting with blue! It is very hard to balance. Other than that, colour is my friend!!

I do absolutely everything that you're not supposed to do: black for dark colours, mixing ultramarine with everything and using paints straight from the tube. Évery amateur trick in the book.
However when I do wean myself off my own naivety I do like a bit of raw umber for cool shadows but I confess to being terrified of Cadmium Yellow: so very vivid!

Oh, cadmium lemon yellow is the WORST! I don't mind using medium though.

Raw umber, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, these are MUST HAVE pigments for me.

I love working with the colours on the more vibrant end of the colour spectrum. My must-have paints are these:

Cadmium-Yellow
Cadmium-Orange
Vermillion
Ultramarine
Turquoise (absolutely necessary in every painting I do because it gives it has a certain effect, especially portraits)
Naples Yellow (for portraits)
Permanent Crimson
Cadmium Red
Payne's Grey
Titanium White

I like brighter colours but feel like I struggle to move away from blues in my artwork. It always seems to be my go to colour. Also I like darkness and black (I describe black as 'my favourite non-colour'), although I keep a handle on it fairly well I think.

I have all the cadmiums, ultramarine, pthalo blue and green (don't tend to use them too much though) alizarin crimson, and I have some odd duck colours because a friend decided to buy me paint for my birthday one year, and took her pre teen daughter with her, so I have a light purple and a kind of odd green as well. The purple surprisingly has come in handy.