Why Would Anyone Want to Paint Without Blue??! 🤔... The ZORN PALETTE

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:23 What is the Zorn palette
04:43 How to use it
07:51 A Unique Mindset
10:04 Pros and Cons
14:31 Is the Sacrifice of color worth it?
20:54 Should you use it and how?
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About me (bio) :
Website :
www.florentfarges.com
I am an artist living and working in France. I learned the techniques of the Atelier of the Nineteenth century and now I try to share some of my knowledge with the rest of the world, because I think that beauty still has an important role to play in artistic creation. I do mostly drawing and oil painting, and my goal is always to provide techniques, thoughts and explanations that can be useful to anyone, from beginners to more advanced artists.
The material I use most of the time (not necessarily in this video) :
Drawing
✓ Kneaded eraser
✓ Plumb line (DIY)
✓ Small mirror
✓ An old synthetic brush
✓ Masking tape
✓ Cutter
✓ Sandpaper or sanding block
✓ Mahlstick or Hand rest (DIY)
✓ Level ruler
Graphite
✓ Pencils 2H, HB and 2B
Charcoal
✓ If available: Nitram charcoals (H, HB and B)
✓ Square charcoals
Black and white chalk
✓ Sketch pencil Conté white
✓ Square Conté noir : HB and 2B
✓ Chalk or pencil holder
✓ Pencil sketch Conté Pierre noire : H and HB
Sanguine
✓ Sketch pencil Conté : Blood and blood Medici
✓ Crayon Polychromos Faber-Castel : sanguine
✓ Sketch pencil Conté white
Oil painting
Palette
(Extra-fine paint, recommended brands depending on availability: Sennelier, Lefranc Bourgeois, Winsor and Newton, Royal Talens Rembrandt, Blockx, Michael Harding, Gamblin)
✓ Titanium White PW6
✓ Flake White (or substitute) PW1
✓ Cadmium Yellow light (or "lemon") PY35
✓ Yellow Ochre PY42
✓ Raw Umber PBr7
✓ Transparent Red Oxyde PR101
✓ Burnt Umber PBr7
✓ Venetian Red PR101
✓ Pyrrole Red PR255
✓ Quinacridone Rose PV19
✓ Quinacridone Magenta PV19
✓ Ultramarine Blue PB29
✓ Mars Black PBk11
✓ Cobalt Teal Blue (turquoise light) PG50
✓ Phthalo green warm PG36
Brushes
✓ Filbert hog bristle and Synthetic sizes n° 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12
✓ Flat Synthetic brushes (same size)
✓ Round sable brush or round Kolinsky sable n° 4, 8, 10, 12 (from the size of the nail (about one inch) or synthetic imitation
Medium
✓ Linseed stand oil
✓ Odorless mineral spirits
✓ Or Alkyd medium (Liquin, Galkyd, Flow'n'Dry etc.)
✓ Safflower oil
Surface
✓ Linen canvas, fine grain universal coating
✓ For studies : Canson oil-acrylic oil paper Figueras
Others
✓ Palette
✓ Sponge and spalter brushes
✓ Palette knife in the shape of a water drop, no souldering
✓ A few small pots, containers, jars...
✓ Paper towels
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#art #painting #inspiration
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Thanks for watching !

[@jasonmilner379]

I've done a few studies with this palette when I first started painting, and it is a great learning tool. It can really demonstrate how colors appear when placed next each other. Especially when mixing greens and "blues". Great video!

[@mouseketeery]

Bit late to the party, but Zorn also did landscapes and figure paintings outside during the Swedish summer. After his death, tubes of Cobalt Blue were found amongst his painting supplies - I presume he used it to get the true greens and blue skies for his outdoor pictures.

[@Jules_Pew]

I've done a couple of painting with this palette. You only really see the blues when you contrast it with a redder section. It does make you think (never a bad thing), but like you, I prefer an expanded palette.

[@Foervraengd]

As someone who has dealt with the cleanup nightmare that is the ultramarine pigment, I 100% fully embrace a no-blue palette.

[@benwuhan]

i love this palette and used it for many portraits. actually I usually only use it for my skin tones, i find it easy to mix. but i have other colors for some other parts of the painting like clothes or background.

[@atroutflycrazy8057]

Thankyou Florent that was a great demonstration of zorns palette, i agree with much of what you said , his palette certainly suited skin tones. My limited palette is ultramarine blue , lemon yellow ,cadmium red and white. A limited palette really helps develop colour understanding and mixing. I appreciate and respect zorns restricting himself to such simplicity of palette, also it was his way to remain unique and different from the other artists also of the time.

[@SnkobArts]

I like the idea of using limitation to find the "freedom within structure". Or using the "wrong" pallet for a given subject. Such as using the Zorn pallet to paint a seascape instead of a portrait. Or using the zorn color gamut limitations with a different triad. Instead of Cad Red/vermillion as the power pigment, make it cobalt teal, make the yellow nickel yellow instead of yellow ochre, then make red your dark color with transparent red iron oxide or mars brown or something. If you flip one of the zorn colors to the other side of the wheel, i find it works best to change the other colors relationally too, otherwise you find yourself living in a world where turquoise is yellow, yellow is red, and black is still blue 😂

[@JohnNoZ35]

I start all my portraits with this palette, and add to it as minimally as possible to achieve what I am after. If I absolutely need a blue or green, I add it, but I don't add a bunch of colors, regardless.

[@outtadabl3u474]

Great vid. I’ve currently been trying to build my own personal pallet, this helps ALOT

[@peteannells4218]

The Zorn palette makes you think ! A brilliant colour theory workout. You have two warm and two cool colours. Some You Tune artists and have used the wrong black or subbed in a blue...no! Ivory black is a dark semi-transparent blue, that;s the point. Natural greens: black and yellow ochre as a base, they are all there unless you are painting spurges! It is a great palette to learn with. The downside: slow drying. Add other colours where required: clear blue skies, flowers, tasteless socks... Works in watercolour too.

[@Tatokala]

Does that means all green in old paintings (for examples netherlandic landscape painting) ist mixed this way?

[@peteannells4218]

@@Tatokala Hi. No, although they needed a blue that wasn't Lapis (v.expensive). Leaves contain red pigments, and yellow, as well as chlorophyll (which is bright green) so natural geens are tertiary colours. So you need an affordable blue (we now have those) plus yellow and red. Yellow ochre has red in it. The zorn pallette works for natural greens because the black (Ivory) although a tertiary, tends to blue. Try adding white to your brand of black to check how blue. The yellow contains the red. And there is a red (cadmium) to make alterations. It's not the easiest way to get greens but it works well once you get the hang of it. Stepping outside the strick Zorn pallette; it's better to make greens paler with pale yellow rather than white. I use Primrose Yellow (PY53) which keeps the warmth and is great for sunlit highlights. There used to be other natural greens and yellows in use but these have been improved upon with modern paints. They tended to fade or change colour. Florent has a good video or two on old pigments. The Zorn Palette is great when you get the hang of it but it is also brilliant at making you think hard about the colours.

[@Tatokala]

Very good hints about possible variations of this palettes and about other limited palettes as well.

[@danfreisting2874]

The final outcome looks great I thought

[@billjenkins5422]

Needed this explanation. Thank you

[@yay-cat]

I’m trying this pallet out at the moment but I’m using a mineral black (schminke mussini) that has a blue undertone. I’m busy making a colour chart (so much more effort than I was expecting!) to see what colours I can get out of it and I’m really stoked with the purples and cool blue greys I’m getting from the black red and white mixes. I would definitely recommend using a blue-black for anyone wanting to try this experiment. My problem with my paintings is that the colours aren’t cohesive enough so that’s why I thought let me experiment with ZP for a bit before I do my final layer on this big piece I’m struggling with. But I will probably introduce a blue after a few experiments because the main project I’m working on has a lot of blue but I’ll do some colour charts so I only select a single specific blue

[@kznsq77]

I think it is suitable for skin tones, but it would be better to use something different, for example, magenta (Alizarin) + yellow + burnt umber + ultramarine + white. The limited palette for skin tones helps to avoid muddy colors because you have a robust and limited set of directions between colors to make the right moves between hue/saturation/value. Thanks for the video!

[@naly202]

This palette is an awesome exercise for artists who, like me, tend to use many saturated colours. This forces us to think outside the box

[@chuhteresa8478]

I disagree with your assessment of the Zorn palette. You start with lead white, ivory black, yellow ochre and vermillion. But then you also mix a purple with red and black (the ivory black has a blueness), an orange (vermillion and ochre) and a green (ochre and black). Now you have 7 distinct colors on your palette. You can then mix a whole range of chromatic grays by combining complements and adding white. The portrait of Zorn’s wife with the newspaper was done with no colors other than this palette (I painted a master copy and know this to be true).

[@mald379]

No doubt he had other colors in his studio, but lets look at the "zorn" palette, vs Cobalt and Cadmium colors. He used whatever was the best price/range ratio, and added more rare colours sparingly, i really think in a big part because of the cost. I'm not sure why he didn't want to use ultramarine blue, which technically should be available back then, but cadmium yellow can be so expensive, I think he was a very pragmatic painter, which also deserves recognition.

[@M.O.1981]

Thank you.

[@rubenmsk]

the zorn palette is basically painting in black & white with some warm tints given by the yellow and red...i paint with watercolors and for me and my experience is better to make the whole painting in b&w and then apply very thin transparent tints over it like in oils but without all the mixing process which is very tedious

[@morriszachrisson8359]

It does not matter how many colors you have on your palette. The thing is that if Zorn would take 333 colors and you 444 colors, he would still do better paintings. Or if he would take only one color, and you two colors, he would still paint better as well. It is not about quantity, but only about your eyes and technique. Nothing else. Absolutely nothing else.

[@stephenfularz7573]

Good painting imformation.

[@FlorentFargesarts]

Many many thanks

[@rogercawkwell5413]

Thought provoking.

[@WaverleyWanderer]

The pallet tends to make everything look dead if you are not very careful or sneak some blue into the black.

[@bottegadelloscuro]

My palette of choice for portraiture. Basically only for skin tones

[@naly202]

As soon as I heard of this palette (only a few days ago) , I wondered if you'd like it. In all your videos there is a blueish background/light, so I assumed you like blue. So, I was pretty sure you wouldn't like a palette without any blues.

[@Tatokala]

13:26 For me its not a problem that color wheel is cut into half. But perhaps it depends on everyone`s way of viewing colors.

[@tanyaroberson9629]

When I look at paintings by artists that use the zorn palette like Rembrant I don't like the paintings because of the colour- too orangey brown gold.

[@shuvoDhar.5537]

❤❤❤❤❤

[@starvictory7079]

Why don't you show the Zorn outdoor paintings? He didn't just do portraits. In Sweden he is famous for his nature paintings with naked women bathing and also paintings of his native shire Dalarna. I also love his work created in Morocco. Lots of teal there I think.

[@tiagodagostini]

Real men paint sunny day beach views with zorn palette

[@manicangel7796]

My problem with a limited palette is my limited ability to paint for long periods and the mess. If I spend all time mixing colors then I'm not painting. If I'm trying to get one hue to create another then 5 palettes later it's spread all over the place.

[@G_Signer]

was this Zorn some kind of color blind person? when i go outside i see mostly green and blue, so i dont get this palette at all, also in skin there are capilaries that can be blue and with this zorn palette thats gonna be grey, its not really good i think

[@FlorentFargesarts]

+1

[@rosverlegaspo6752]

More of style or preference. You are actually very free in terms of colors. In fact, you can create artwork with no to almost no colors (black and white), in what is called Grisaille. The popular one that you might know is Guernica by Pablo Picasso. You can create works with unrealistic colors. Is a blue green woman unnatural to you? See Chinese Girl by Vladimir Tretchikoff. On the extreme, you have Fauvism and the insane colors they will use. Bright pink mountains? Intense yellow skies? Blue hair? Green shadows? How about a face of the colors of the rainbow? You must also understand that color is relative. Gray would actually look blue when surrounded by warm colors (like skin colors). A dull grey would actually be the correct color to represent the veins of the skin instead of actually using a blue which would look too garish.

[@1977ajax]

If you want to understand this palette, better go to a video made by someone experienced with it who knows how to use it.

[@tanyaroberson9629]

If you want to paint a peacock your out of luck.

[@tonyaredchenko142]

Thanks for your video lessons! It's helpful for me ! 🤍I just started to paint one year ago!