Spring Palette 2025

Another season, another palette! I’ve been doing very little studio painting but a fair amount of plein air sketching this month, so I’ve been able to adapt my colors to what works for me in the field. I thought I would take you on a little journey showing what I started with, what changes I made, and why.

As with my most recent Winter Palette, I decided to adopt the attitude of “what colors personally speak to me this season?” rather than my usual approach of “what are the objectively all-time best/springiest colors?”

Starter Approach: Choosing Core Colors

I adopted Sarah Burns’ approach to palette selection: first, I picked a six-color palette of “core colors,” then I added random colors that spark joy right now until I had filled my pocket palette.

I started with my standard core colors of yellow, magenta, cyan, earth yellow, earth orange, and dark blue. But since those are slots, not specific pigments, I adapted the slot-fillers to springy choices.

Slot	Spring Selection
Middle Yellow	SH Aureolin Modern (PY151)
Magenta, Pink, or Rose	HO Quinacridone Magenta (PR122)
Cyan	DS Phthalo Blue Green Shade (PB15:3)
Earth Yellow	DS Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (PBr7)
Earth Orange	DV Terra Cotta (PR102)
Dark Blue	DS Indanthrone Blue (PB60)

I then added a bunch of bonus colors, whatever spoke to me in the moment.

I won’t go into these choices in too much detail as I ended up changing a number of them, as you’ll see!

Adaptations in the Field

Adapting yellows

I knew that I wanted to be able to make bright, yellowy limey greens for maple flowers, new willow leaves, and other spring buds. My initial strategy was to mix Azo Yellow and Phthalo Green or Cobalt Turquoise, which worked okay, but I discovered a very specific drawback: I kept getting my yellow too green from mixing, and then I couldn’t use it for yellowy yellows, like daffodils!

I teased in my new colors post that I was trying out a mixed leaf green as a potential solution. I don’t ordinarily use many mixed colors, but a very specific use case I thought of for a mixed yellow-green was that it could be the base or mixer for other yellow-greens, leaving my actual yellow clean. Also, it looks cute and very springy in the palette!

However, I have to acknowledge that this solution didn’t last long. I found that I still used yellow as a mixer, and still got it dirty – this time, though, I got it dirty from mixing with the leaf green because I wanted my green even more yellow. Back to the drawing board!

A breakthrough came when I added good ol’ Rich Green Gold (PY129) back into the mix in place of the Leaf Green. It’s more of a yellow than a green, super glowing and dispersive.

This color is similar to Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150), and my satisfaction with it was part of what inspired me to tap Nickel Azo Yellow as one of my core colors! However, it’s slightly cooler/greener cast works for me in spring.

What it doesn’t do is mix those electrically bright, neon lime greens – it is actually fairly mid-chroma, though it is quite intense and often reads bright in paintings. For that, I decided to turn to my old friend Imidazolone Lemon (PY175). Over the year, I feel I’ve become complacent in my theory that “Azo Yellow looks like a middle yellow but mixes like a lemon yellow;” it takes spring to prove to me that it’s really not nearly as lemony as PY175, and that makes a difference in this season!

Pinks: no notes

I knew I wanted Quin Magenta (PR122), a cooler and more “true” magenta compared to my usual PV19, because it can make these great bold pinks for florals. I like to pair Quin Magenta with Quin Coral (PR209) because the more orangey pink allows me to cover a wide range of floral hues. Both of these worked well! I considered including white to mix pastels, but ended up happy with just diluting.

Adapting violets

The initial choice of Quin Violet (PV19) was pretty random and I ended up cutting it fairly soon. Quin Violet is awkward; not quite bright enough for vivid violets (PR122 does a better job), but not quite dark enough for really deep shadows.

In the purple slot, I wound up replacing it with Lavender. I don’t normally use pastel mixes, but if not spring, then when? It’s useful for modulating purple florals. I also find that clouds often look lavender-ish to me recently, whether they’re fluffy or stormy.

Adapting dark reds

I liked Perylene Maroon (PR179) when I used it to painted the deep red centers of orange witch-hazel blooms.

You can see that I mixed the Perylene Maroon with Indanthrone Blue to make it more violet. So when I got Da Vinci’s new Perylene Violet (PV29), I thought, why not try that, instead?

I wound up loving it for the shadows of pink cherry trees (though I may have gone too dark here!)

I also think Perylene Violet adds interesting complexity to earth mixes. In the nature spots below, I added a bit of the violet to my usual earth orange + violet-blue mix for bark, and I think it makes it look different in a very cool way. I also used it, combined with my other reds and oranges, to add a hefty darkness to my dark red maple blue mix, without making it too blue or violet or neutral.

Adapting blues

Nearly all my initial blue choices were cobalt-based, and while these are lovely colors, I found myself hesitating to use them in practice in the field. I’ve just gotten a new in-person job and most of the painting time I have available to me is on my lunch break, when I also need to eat. I usually wash my hands thoroughly after using cobalt paints, but that wasn’t something I could always do as well as I wanted to while squeezing painting and eating into my lunch break. So I decided to stick to nontoxic paints.

With the space I freed up, I actually added Ultramarine Blue into my palette, which I normally don’t have (since Indanthrone Blue takes the dark blue slot). It’s been kind of nice having both Ultramarine and Indanthrone, so I can choose which one to use based on whether I want more granulation or more darkness.

Phthalo Blue Green Shade is also an offbeat choice for me, but I found its cheerfulness great for spring. And Phthalo Green came in clutch especially in the absence of Cobalt Teal, for making those very bright green mixes. I did wind up going back from Phthalo Green Blue Shade to Yellow Shade, which I find springier.

Earth tones: No problems there

Terra Cotta treated me right! I can use it for all the things I’d normally use Transparent Red Oxide for, and it’s awesome for robin breasts (mixed with a little New Gamboge). And MANS was great to mix into grass for those dry spots/dirt patches.

Resulting Spring Palette

Now that I’ve shown you how I got there, here’s where I ended up!

Top row:

• HO Imidazolone Yellow (PY175)
• DS Hansa Yellow Medium (PY97)
• DS New Gamboge (PY97, PY110)
• DV Quin Red (PR209)
• HO Quin Magenta (PR122)
• HO Phthalo Blue Yellow Shade (PB15:3)
• DS Phthalo Green Yellow Shade (PG36)

Bottom row:

• DS Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (PBr7)
• DV Terra Cotta (PR102)
• DV Perylene Violet (PV29)
• HO Lavender (PB29, PV15, PW6)
• DS Indanthrone Blue (PB60)
• DV Ultramarine Blue (PB29)
• DS Rich Green Gold (PY129)

Thanks for going on this journey with me!