Trying the Anders Zorn palette

It's been a while since I've posted my stuff on this blog. I had received two really nice Moleskine drawing and painting sketchbooks for my birthday and Christmas and have been busy sketching away. Unfortunately, it's hard to get those books through the scanner for the blog. If I draw something extra amazing, I'll see if I can get it posted.

Some of the other things I got as gifts were more oil paints, which made me quite happy. Here is a quick painting done using the "Zorn palette".

Anders Zorn was a Swedish painter from the late 1900's who did a lot of his work using only four colors - well, three colors and white. He used yellow ochre for his yellow, vermillion for his red and 'bone black' for his blues. Now paintings created with this set of colors are often said to be done using a "Zorn palette".

Now vermillion is not used anymore as a paint pigment because of the mercury involved. It's one of several old pigments that would (and did) kill you if you used it extensively. In this painting I used Italian Pompeii Red from Williamsburg paints, which is an iron oxide red (rust colored). Vermillion is a much brighter red, closer to a cadmium red light. It's an interesting way of painting and I will do a few more of these.