It’s become a fall tradition: each year as the leaves begin to change, I revise my autumn foliage palette. I made a 2022 Autumn Palette and a 2023 Fall Foliage Palette, and here’s my latest, inspired by my recent leaf studies!
Many people think of subdued tones when they think of autumn, but I think autumn is one of the most colorful seasons around! My general philosophy for building autumnal palettes is to go for really bright, deep yellows/oranges/reds (or mixers thereof) while keeping other shades a bit more toned down.
The Colors
A check ✅ means it was on last year’s palette, too! (More or less: I might have switched brands.)
Top Row
- Hansa Yellow Medium (PY97): A bold middle yellow that’s perfect for many types of leaves. Lately I’ve been going for Azo Yellow (PY151), which is a bit cooler, but for novelty and seasonality I chose a warmer shade. The two yellows are so similar that it doesn’t really matter, tbh. Last year I initially went for the even warmer PY74, but it was actually a bit too warm for certain leaves and flowers, so in my problem-solving post I switched to my then-usual PY154, which is almost an identical color with PY97.
- Hansa Yellow Deep (PY65): Bold, warm orange-yellow that mixes the brightest oranges. ✅
- Transparent Pyrrol Orange (PO71): I agree with my notes on TPO last year, where I observed that you will be disappointed with it if you’re looking to use it to mix bright oranges, but you will love it if you’re looking to deepen magenta into intense crimson reds. Also great for warm glazes. I switched to DS’s version mainly for consistency reasons (I found WN rather hard). ✅
- Quinacridone Coral (PR209): This is my bold orange mixing all star. ✅
- Quinacridone Red (PV19): I did a lot of experimenting last year to land on this compromise between Quin Rose and Alizarin Crimson. I liked it so much I ended up using it as my main red all year! I still think it’s the absolute best for autumn leaves: red maple leaves feel like they have this exact rosy undertone. Mixes a gorgeous bold fire engine red with a touch of yellow or orange. ✅
- Phthalo Blue Red Shade (PB15): A bold blue for crisp autumn skies, and also mixes the perfect mid-tone greens for late summer/early fall leaves. ✅
- Rich Green Gold (PY129): I go back and forth on including this in my autumn palette, and it’s probably honestly the most expendable color. But it’s a great convenience color for green sunlit leaves, and the muted lime of fading chorophyll. It’s great for drawing green veins onto red leaves. Last year I had Phthalo Turquoise (PB16) in this slot; we’ll see if I regret not having a bolder leaf green mixer than PBRS.
Bottom Row
- Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150): Multi-useful deep gold. Probably somewhat reduplicative with Rich Green Gold, but ultimately a more versatile mixer. ✅
- Gold Ochre (PY42): The perfect golden brown for crispy leaves, multi-colored leaves from a distance, and yellow shadows. ✅
- Transparent Red Oxide (PR101): Great for deepening that crispy color, rust-colored oak leaves, and mixing browns with blues. ✅
- Perylene Red (PR178): A solid middle red for leaves with extremely deep mid-red color, or for mixing dark wine reds with blue. Last year I had Deep Scarlet (PR175) in this slot, but I found it disappointing because it wound up mixing too subdued to work as a bright scarlet but not dark enough to deepen mixes. I wound up switching to Pyrrol Red (PR254), a bold fire engine red, which I felt more able to paint bright red leaves and mix dark wine reds. Since then, I have found that Perylene Red is actually my preferred solver for both of those problems, because its unmixed shade is less eye-wateringly bright but its mixes are oddly cleaner and brighter.
- Quinacridone Magenta (PR202): An oddball choice I don’t normally put in my main palette because it’s similar to PR122 but much more subdued – which I normally don’t prefer. But I like it for this palette because it’s a great mixer of deep crimsons (with orange) and it’s the perfect color for fall mums. Last year I had Bordeaux (PV32) initially, but found it had some weird behavior (and did poorly in my lightfast tests), so I switched to Quin Violet (PV19 beta). PR202 has a hue in between PV32 and PV19b, and is more lightfast than either.
- Indanthrone Blue (PB60): My all-star shadow blue, a crucial mixer for cooling and darkening anything. ✅
- Indigo: A greener-toned dark blue for mixing pine greens and night skies. Last year I had Perylene Green in this slot, but I find the blue more versatile and stronger.
Also Rans
Here are some colors I thought about adding, but ultimately decided against (again):
- Perylene Violet (PV29) seems like a good idea for the deeper red tones in fall leaves and it looks great wet, but the drying shift is so intense that it’s hard for me to use effectively.
- Perylene Scarlet (PR149) is another one I keep trying to make happen, but like Perylene Violet it has an annoying drying shift and a tendency toward splotchiness. It’s also similar to Deep Scarlet in that it has a mid-tone that is neither bright enough for the brightest scarlets nor dark enough for deep intense shadows. Crimsons and magentas seem to do better than scarlets at mixing darker reds.
- Pyrrol Scarlet (PR255) unmixed is the perfect hue for some leaf scarlets, but its mixing behavior tends toward muddy because of its opacity.
- Quinacridone Gold (PY150, PO48) is one I always consider because it’s the warmer version of PY150 and it looks a lot like Gold Ochre unmixed, but I find PY150 and Gold Ochre more effective at their respective jobs (mixing greens and being earthy, respectively).
- Quinacridone Burnt Orange (PO48) is lovely but I find it too similar to TRO without being as useful of a mixer. It makes nice pine greens with dark blues, but doesn’t mix the browns and grays that I require of an earth orange. PO48 can be used as a glazing mixing to warm things up, but so can TPO.
Conclusion
After a few years of refinement and practice, I’m feeling fairly confident about my autumn choices. I feel like I’ve recognized what I need in an autumn palette: brighter colors than you think, transparent glazing colors, surprisingly pinkish reds, warm golden yellows. I can’t wait to paint some vibrant trees.