Core Colors!

It’s been four years of painting (I forgot to observe my anniversary), and I’ve finally figured out my core six colors!

What are core colors?

You could also think of them as:

• The colors you use the most often
• The colors you’d take with you to a desert island
• The colors you almost always have to work into a palette… even if you try to branch out
• Your old reliables – the ones you can always count on
• The colors you’d recommend to a newbie if they could only afford x number of colors

They don’t have to be the only colors you limit yourself to, now and forever. Sarah Burns recently did a palette building post where she started with her six “core colors” then added whatever she liked on top of that, without worrying too much. I think that’s a useful way to think of “core colors”: it’s not that you never paint with anything else, but because they cover your bases, you can just have fun with it after that.

How I found mine

Until recently, attempts to intentionally create a small six-color palette have generally been unsuccessful. Maybe I’m finally just ready. But I think I also kind of backed into it. A few recent investigations have contributed to this:

• When I investigated whether the split primary palette was the best six-color palette for beginners, I kept trying different things until I realized that I was looking for a “system” that would give me six pretty specific colors.
• When I substituted to get my preferred version of Max Romey’s eight-color palette, I ended up with a similar list.
• After informally keeping track of which colors I run out of the most often, these ones kept coming up.

Here they are

Core Slot	Current/Typical Filler
Yellow	Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150)
Magenta, Pink, or Rose	Quinacridone Red (PV19)
Cyan	Phthalo Turquoise (PB16)
Earth Yellow	Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (PBr7)
Earth Orange	Transparent Red Oxide (PR101)
Dark Blue	Indanthrone Blue (PB60)

Conceptually, this is a yellow/magenta/cyan modern triad, plus a couple of earthy colors to bring granulation and low chroma (great for landscapes), and finally a dark blue which is crucial for mixing dark values. I’ve put them in the order I tend to have them in my palette, but if I were to put them in order of importance (like if you could just buy one at a time), they would be:

1. Dark blue – you can use this alone to make monochrome paintings.
2. Earth orange – you can combine this with dark blue to make a wide range of useful browns and grays for subdued landscapes.
3. Yellow – Now you can mix deep greens with the dark blue, golds with the earth orange, and paint a fairly completely landscape.
4. Magenta – Allows you to mix a wide range of pinks and purples (with the blue), reds and oranges (with the yellow).
5. Cyan – Expands your range of blues to include crucial sky colors; mixes brighter greens than you can get from the dark blue.
6. Earth yellow – Expands your range of earthy landscape hues, and useful for realistic sunset skies.

I do tend to think of these more as slots than specific colors. I’m not married to a specific brand or pigment for most of these, and I have a range of paints I’d find useful in each category; I sometimes alter them a little for certain effects in various theme palettes.

But I’m a little more strict about what I’m looking for in each slot than I would be for a “bonus color,” so I thought I would go into a little more depth about each Core Color.

Core Color Breakdown

Dark Blue

Top Choice: Daniel Smith Indanthrone Blue (PB60). This color is very dark, distinctly blue, and slightly violet-toned, which gives it some variety from cyan, and allows it to better resemble many types of shadows which I often find violet-toned. Daniel Smith’s version is fairly unusual; Schmincke’s Delft Blue is similar, but if I couldn’t have those brands, my next choice would not be other brands’ PB60, which tend to be different.

Also Good: Most people use Ultramarine Blue (PB29) for this purpose because it is also violet-toned with the possibility of mixing dark darks. I find it harder to get it as dark, and the granulation and high-chroma unmixed hue can be distracting, but there’s no question it’s a flexible and useful paint… plus, it’s widely available, offered by every brand, and usually inexpensive.

Earth Orange

Top Choice:

• For a long time it has been DS Transparent Red Oxide (PR101), which I like both because of its transparency and because of its exciting granulation.
• Lately I am also getting into DV Terra Cotta (PR102), which is just pretty; it’s semi-opaque but that no longer bothers me much.

Also Good:

• Burnt Sienna (PBr7) is widely available from many brands and mixes just about the same. It can often be quite beautiful with granulation and a subtle color. It may be weaker than my picks.
• Non-granulating transparent red oxide-type PR101’s such as WN Burnt Sienna or DV Burnt Sienna Deep are also reasonable; they behave very similarly to my top pick except for the granulation. I do find they havr a big drying shift.
• Many people use Burnt Umber, Transparent Brown Oxide, or other browns similarly, especially for the use case of mixing brown or gray with blue.

Yellow

Top Choice: Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150) is a fairly unique, very dispersive, very flexible yellow that gets dark and earthy in masstone but is transparent and lemony in dilute. I initially had Middle Yellow e.g. Hansa Yellow Medium as my main yellow pick, but I think that PY150 goes better in a minimal palette with my dark blue and earth orange, and I also find that even when I attempt to build a palette without it, PY150 always sneaks its way back in! As for brand, I use Daniel Smith, but it’s fairly consistent across brands (e.g. WN Transparent Yellow, Schmincke Transparent Yellow, DV Nickel Azo Yellow, Mission Gold’s Green Gold, etc.)

Also Good:

• Any Middle Yellow. To be honest I often have both NAY and a middle yellow, because middle yellows just have unparalleled brightness. But I think NAY is a little more crucial to me.
• Rich Green Gold (PY129) and Quin Gold (a mix involving PY150) are similar to PY150 in many ways, but I think less flexible.

Quin Rose/Red (PV19)

Top Choice: Quinacridone Red (PV19) is typically a deep, wide-ranging, red-leaning rose color that straddles the line between pink, red, and crimson. I love it from many brands, including DV Red Rose Deep, DS Quin Red, and Holbein Quin Red.

Also Good:

• Quinacridone Rose (PV19) is a very similar color from the same pigment that is usually a bit more toward pink/magenta (that is, a little less red and a little more violet).
• Quinacridone Magenta (PR122) is even more toward magenta/violet and is probably the most responsible choice because it is a “true primary” and a little more lightfast, though I find Quin Red or Rose slightly more convenient for pinks and reds in nature.
• Permanent Alizarin Crimson, in any of a variety of formulations, are very similar to Quin Red but tend to be a bit darker and redder.

Cyan

Top Choice: I mean, some kind of Phthalo, but I go back and forth on which of these is my top choice, depending on season and whim:

• Phthalo Blue Red Shade (PB15:1) consistently ranks as my top color for skies because of its convenient middle blue hue and wide value range, which also allows it to mix dark skies. It is equally good across many brands, including DV, Holbein, DS, Schmincke, WN, etc.
• Phthalo Blue Green Shade (PB15:3) is closer to true cyan and a cheerful, bright hue. It mixes green readily and can also mix a PBRS hue with a little red, rose, or violet. I tend to opt for PBGS in brighter palettes, such as spring. It is, if anything, even more widely available and great in every brand.
• Phthalo Turquoise (PB16) is even more greenish which can be fun, and it gets super dark in masstone (especially in my preferred WN formulation) which can be great for mixing darks. Phthalo Turquoise plus Nickel Azo Yellow is my preferred mix for summer greens.

Earth Yellow

Top Choice: DS Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (PBr7) is consistently my favorite with its cheerful yellow hue, brown undertones that mix lovely soft grays, and resistance to mixing green (which makes it great for skies).

Also Good:

• Many brands offer a yellow-leaning Raw Sienna (some combination of PY43, PY42, and/or PBr7). Essentially MANS is just that I just tend to find most of them a bit weak and/or brownish compared to MANS, but the differences can be fairly slight. WN, Holbein, and Schmincke are fine.
• WN Gold Ochre (PY42) is a much higher chroma yellow ochre equivalent than most, but leans on the orange side (and is not granulating).
• HO and DV have fairly warm Yellow Ochres (not granulating).
• For the specific purpose of yellows in skies, I actually slightly prefer Naples Yellow Deep (PBr24), but it is kind of a one-trick pony. MANS is more flexible because it also looks great in just about any other mix and serves a wide variety of purposes in a landscape.

Core Colors in Various Brands

I’ve never seen a commercially available beginner set that follows my exact beginner prescription; if I did, I’d recommend it. Here’s how I’d collect the core colors in various brands, for ease of purchasing open stock. I’ve starred the ones I prefer. Some are not quite the same but closest I could find.

Brand	Yellow	Magenta	Cyan	E Yellow	E Orange	Dk Blue
Da Vinci	Nickel Azo Yellow	Red Rose Deep*	Phthalo Turquoise	Yellow Ochre	Terra Cotta*	Ultramarine Blue
Daniel Smith	Nickel Azo Yellow*	Quin Red*	Phthalo Teal Blue	Monte Amiata*	Transp Red Oxide*	Indanthrone Blue*
Holbein	Aureolin Hue	Quin Red*	Phthalo Blue YS	Yellow Ochre	Light Red	Ultramarine Deep
Schmincke	Transp Yellow	Ruby Red	Helio Turquoise	Yellow Ochre	Transp. Sienna	Delft Blue*
Van Gogh	Transp. Yellow Med	Carmine	Turquoise	Yellow Ochre	Burnt Sienna	Indigo
WN Pro	Transp Yellow	Perm. Rose	Phthalo Turquoise*	Gold Ochre	Burnt Sienna	Fr. Ultramarine
WN Cotman	Gamboge Hue	Perm. Rose	Turquoise	Raw Sienna	Burnt Sienna	Ultramarine

Do you have core colors? What are they?