What is the basic colour palette for paints?

Recommendations on colours and the basic palette are the most frequently asked questions asked by aspiring artists or those buying a present for the 'artist in their life!'

There is a basic rule of thumb and then many, many variations depending on personal preference, style and subject of painting so I thought it might be useful to give my opinion. 

A starter set should consist of warm and cool colours:
2 yellows - cool lemon yellow : warm cadmium yellow or equivalent tone like permanent yellow
2 reds  - cool alizarin crimson : warm cadmium red or an equivalent bright red
2 blues - cool cobalt blue  : warm ultramarine
Earth colours - cool raw umber or raw sienna  : warm yellow ochreor burnt umber or burnt sienna
Titanium White - opaque and strong white

The colours vary from within ranges from different manufactures : we will put together information about the basics in each range for our next blog.

From a starter set of paints with the above colour spectrum, there is scope for mixing other tones.

Plenty of greens can be mixed from the yellows, yellow ochre and blues above.  However very useful colours for landscape artists are terre verte and sap green.  Terre Verte is also useful for subtle skin tones when working on portraits.

Zinc White, which is semi transparent, is a good mixing white which when added to other colours and will alter the tone is a less dramatic way than an opaque titanium white.