Girl in Limited Palette by Ignat Ignatov, oil, 121/2 x 12.

In last Friday's post featuring artist-instructor Kerry Dunn, we explored some of the opportunities and challenges that an extensive color palette offers. On the flipside, Bulgarian-born painter Ignat Ignatov understands how an artist can benefit from the use of a limited palette. For a time Ignatov pared down his palette to include just four pigments: titanium white, yellow ochre, cadmium red, and ivory black.

"This palette is associated with the one Anders Zorn used in some of his works," says Ignatov, who took up the same handful of colors as the Swedish master to perfect his ability to evaluate color and color harmony. "It was a great way to push myself to mix as many color nuances with only four colors. You only had four options to dip your brush in, so it really gets you to decide precisely about color temperature."

The four colors used in the Zorn palette create a muted color spectrum, as it incorporates the three primary colors, with black standing in for blue. Ignatov describes it as similar to looking through a color filter in which certain colors are suppressed. The closest a painter can come to blue is gray mixed with black and white; the greenest green is a mixture of black and yellow ochre; purple is a mixture of black, white, and red. The palette limits the saturation and intensity of several colors, yet the subdued tones often help artists recognize complimentary colors and strengthen their understanding of the structure and formulations of the color wheel.

"When you place orange next to the gray, the gray looks blue in comparison because orange is its compliment," says Ignatov. "The muted purple looks more saturated next to yellow; the muted green looks greener next to red. That's how the palette works-you must be aware of complimentary colors to get the most out of the few colors you are using." It isn't an easy exercise, to be sure. One of the biggest hurdles with using this particular quartet of colors is their lack of transparency. "These color mixtures are very opaque and it's easy to get mud," the artist says. Ignatov combated this susceptibility by keeping his brushes scrupulously clean and separating each color mixture on his palette.

	Seated by the Window by Ignat Ignatov, oil, 19 1/2 x 15.

But a limited palette does have its benefits. Color harmony can be taken for granted and is assured no matter the subject matter or genre a painter works in. There's also a certain atmospheric quality created from the use of a muted palette. Ignatov considered this as an asset because it allowed him to imbue mood through color, or lack thereof.

Ignatov spent a year working with a limited palette. Eventually he switched to a fuller palette of 14 colors because he wanted to accurately match, not mute, the intensity of color any subject matter or chosen composition might present him. However, the time spent working solely with the Zorn palette gave Ignatov a deeper, more experienced understanding of how to mix colors and, therefore, how color develops.

Understanding value is a fundamental in both painting and drawing. If you are interested in sharpening your skills with a limited painting palette, one of the best ways to start is by working through value studies in pencil or charcoal. You can gain an appreciation of how to use gradation to suggest mass and form, which is also essential with a limited painting palette. The Drawing 2007 Collection CD is an ideal companion guide for this because it contains articles devoted to fundamentals like value as well as step-by-step illustrated exercises to take you through the process, so that when you decide to take up your limited palette, you'll be more than ready to meet the challenge.

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