A review of my Corsica travel palette

The only limited palette I have is my outdoor and travel palette. I have been painting outside for around four years now. After each major vacation, I try to evaluate what colors I used most, colors I didn’t use, colors I missed or colors I just want to switch up. Sometimes I pack colors that are specific for the location I travel to. But most often I put together a palette that works for every occasion. 

This time, I decided to take two art toolkit pocket palettes with me. I couldn’t decide on only 14 colors (which fit in one pocket palette), so I decided to take two. The first palette works on its own, but in the second palette are colors that improve and use often as well. As I had some space left I filled those with colors I already had in art toolkit pans. To no surprise, I didn’t use some of them. But let’s take a closer look.

This vacation was mainly on Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean Sea and beforehand some days in the mountains, the Alps. Corsica belongs to France and is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. It has lovely beaches, amazing flowers and overall a beautiful landscape. 

Mixes 

To analyze my use of colors, I had a look at my mixes. I roughly looked at all the things I painted most: skies, rocks, water, greenery and atmospheric distance. For each of the categories I mixed some colors. In my paintings I most likely mixed some more nuances, but for an overview this is good enough. 

Greenery

Whenever someone paints nature, something green may be somewhere. Sometimes the green is more brownish, more blue or more bright, depending on which climate you have and what time of the year it is. On Corsica, the greens are more muted and at the same time more blue or more yellow, compared to the middle of Germany where I live. Luckily, I could mix everything with the standard colors I took with me. In the picture above you see all my green mixtures. 

I usually start with Aureolin Green and then adjust from there. Sometimes I add granulating paints (Ultramarine Blue or Magnesium Brown / Yellow Iron Oxide), sometimes some kind of yellow (Cadmium Lemon or Monte Amiata Natural Sienna) or another dark color (mostly Perylene Green).

Water

As I visited some of the beautiful beaches on Corsica, I painted a lot of water. In this case, the water had a really pretty turquoise and blue color. The water was really transparent. 

The stars of the show were definitely Phthalo Blue Red Shade, Perylene Green and Cobalt Turquoise. For some softer blues at the beach I also used mixes with Buff Titanium. The combination of PBRS and Perylene Green is a trusted and tested combination for other waters too, such as the North Sea or the Atlantic Ocean. But it was the first time I took cobalt turquoise with me, and I am so glad I did. 

Rocks and stone

The beaches were usually framed by rocks. They sometimes had a pale whitish color, sometimes they were reddish. They had speckles in darker colors. The Mediterranean houses had similar colors as the rocks.

Usually the base color was pale and bright in the sun, whereas the shadows were deep and almost black. So I usually started with a pale wash of Buff Titanium or a very diluted reddish or yellowish mixture, to then add shadows and darker parts on the rocks. 

For the shadows, I sometimes used a mixture with Ultramarine blue and a brown, and on other times my self made Moonglow mixture.

The sky

When putting together my palette, I planned mainly three colors as my sky colors: Phthalo Blue Red Shade, Lavender and my Moonglow mixture as cloud shadows. This combination worked well for me on other occasions, but this time I was missing something. The sky wasn’t deep enough for PBRS and not purple enough for Lavender. (Diluted) Lavender was pale enough for the horizon though. And sometimes I even added a little Buff Titanium for the horizon, when it looked especially dusty. 

Atmospheric distance

This is a subject I am still learning to paint. My perception still likes to fool me into thinking that it’s less blue. But I had a breakthrough during the days in the mountains. I painted some houses on rocks in front of a mountain that had the same color as the rocks in the foreground. Or so I thought. I painted everything the same color, I only left out some details in the background. But that wasn’t enough. In the end I added a layer of lavender on the background. It made everything more blue, a little paler and less detailed. And that helped tremendously. It was a really valuable lesson that I could use for all the things in the distance: add Lavender and it will look better. 

Dark mixes

One of the first things I do when I put together colors for a palette, is to plan my dark mixes. In the picture below you can see which mixes I used most often, even though there were certainly more possible mixes. I choose colors that can mix near black colors that I like to use for shadows. One of the mixes is not granulating, the others are granulating. 

Summary

Most used colors 

• My most used color was Lavender, by far. I used it in the skies and to push things into the background. I used it in greenery and as accents on rocks. 
• Buff Titanium, PBRS and Aureolin Green were also used in almost every painting. 

Rarely used

• Transparent Orange (DPP) is not a color I use often, but a color that I miss when I don’t have it. It can be used to mix red with Quin. Rose.
• Quinacridone Rose (here Ruby Red from Schmincke, PV19) is a staple on my palette, even though I rarely need it. In landscapes or in urban scenes red or pink are not very common. And when they are there, a pink or (mixed) red is needed. 
• Manganese Violet (PV16) is new on my palette and I like its potential for granulating accents. I only used it on three paintings.

Never used

• Perylene Violet (PV29) is so pretty and can be used to mix deep darks with perylene green (PBk31). But I don’t know what to use it for. It would probably make gorgeous dark shadows for red objects.
• Indanthrone Blue (here Delft Blue from Schmincke, PB60) is a color put into the palette because I had empty space and it was already in a pan. I really don’t need it.
• Nickel Azo Yellow (here Aureolin from Rosa Gallery, PY150) is my favorite yellow for greenery. But as I have Aureolin Green on my palette, I don’t need it. 
• Opera Pink (PR122, PV10) is one of my favorite colors, but in landscapes and urban scenes it’s rarely needed. 

The rest of the colors lay in between or have purposes that were not present in this vacation. Perylene green was certainly more often used than elsewhere, and Mahogany Brown (PBr33) was certainly used much less than usual. 

Conclusion

The perfect palette doesn’t exist. After a while I always change up things in my travel palette and evaluate what might work even better for me. I put this palette together very well. The only thing I really missed was a convenience sky color. 

On Corsica, I thought I might need Verditer Blue (PB28, PW6) from Holbein or a Cobalt Blue (PB28). And my initial thought was to throw out Lavender for that. I really love a pale blue on my palette. So if I throw out Lavender, I put in Verditer Blue. But when I wrote this article, it occurred to me that I could just throw out Delft Blue (PB60) and add Cobalt blue. It’s not a major change, but it’s my next iteration of my outdoor and travel palette. 

I very well could change out the other colors I didn’t use, but so far I have no idea. Maybe a fun granulating color? Does someone have suggestions for me? Let me know in the comments!

If you want to see a full sketchbook tour of my vacation, you can find it here: