Quick answer: For most painters, the colors to put on a painting palette are a warm and a cool version of each primary plus white: cadmium (or hansa) yellow light, yellow ochre, cadmium red light (or a pyrrole red), alizarin crimson (or quinacridone magenta), ultramarine blue, phthalo or cerulean blue, burnt umber and titanium white. That eight-to-nine color “split primary” setup mixes almost any hue cleanly. Arrange the colors in the same order every session, usually warm to cool around the edge, with white given extra space.
Opening a new set of tubes and squeezing out every color is tempting, but a crowded palette usually produces muddier paintings, not better ones. Deciding what colors to put on a painting palette is really a decision about mixing: which few pigments will give you the widest range of clean color with the least confusion. This guide explains the reasoning, gives specific starter palettes for acrylic, oil, watercolor and gouache, and shows how to lay them out.
The physical palette matters too. A compact surface forces you to be selective, which is one reason many painters like working from a small, well-organized mixing palette rather than a giant tray.
Why a Limited Color Palette for Painting Works Better
Every pigment you add multiplies the possible mixtures, but it also multiplies the chance of grabbing the wrong one. A limited set does three useful things:
- It builds color harmony automatically. When every mix shares a few parent pigments, colors relate to each other, and the painting looks unified.
- It teaches mixing. You learn how each pigment behaves, how strong it is, and what it does to its neighbors.
- It saves paint and space. Fewer piles means more room to mix and less waste.
Many historical and contemporary painters have worked with deliberately small palettes. The exact choice varies, but the principle is consistent: understand a few colors deeply before adding more.
The Split-Primary Palette: The Best Color Palette to Start With
A single red, yellow and blue cannot mix every color cleanly, because real pigments are not pure primaries. Ultramarine blue leans slightly toward red (warm-violet), while phthalo blue leans toward green. Mixing ultramarine with a yellow gives a muted, olive green; mixing phthalo blue with the same yellow gives a bright, clean green. The split-primary approach solves this by including two of each primary, one leaning each way.
| Primary | Warm version | Cool version | What the pair lets you mix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Cadmium yellow medium / deep (leans orange) | Cadmium yellow light or hansa yellow (leans green) | Bright oranges from the warm; clean greens from the cool |
| Red | Cadmium red light or pyrrole red (leans orange) | Alizarin crimson or quinacridone magenta (leans blue) | Warm oranges and corals; clean purples and pinks |
| Blue | Ultramarine blue (leans violet) | Phthalo blue or cerulean (leans green) | Violets and deep shadows; turquoise and vivid greens |
Add titanium white and one earth color, and you have a palette that handles landscapes, portraits, still life and abstracts.
Why add an earth color?
Earth pigments such as burnt umber, burnt sienna and yellow ochre are inexpensive, opaque or semi-opaque, and naturally muted. Burnt umber mixed with ultramarine makes a rich near-black that is more lively than tube black. Yellow ochre and burnt sienna speed up skin tones, wood, soil and autumn foliage. You can mix these from primaries, but having them ready saves time.
Recommended Starter Palettes by Medium
The same logic applies across media, but the best pigment choices shift slightly with each.
Acrylic palette (9 colors)
- Titanium white
- Hansa yellow light (cool yellow)
- Cadmium yellow medium or a hue (warm yellow)
- Yellow ochre
- Pyrrole or cadmium red light (warm red)
- Quinacridone magenta (cool red)
- Ultramarine blue (warm blue)
- Phthalo blue, green shade (cool blue)
- Burnt umber
Acrylic dries fast, so keep piles small or use a wet palette. Our guide to what a wet palette is and how it works explains how it keeps acrylic mixes open for hours or days.
Oil palette (9 to 10 colors)
- Titanium white (or a titanium-zinc blend)
- Cadmium yellow lemon or light
- Cadmium yellow medium
- Yellow ochre
- Cadmium red light
- Alizarin crimson permanent
- Ultramarine blue
- Cerulean or phthalo blue
- Burnt sienna
- Burnt umber
Oils stay wet for a long time, so you can lay out slightly larger amounts. Phthalo blue is very strong in oil; a tiny amount goes a long way.
Watercolor palette (8 colors)
Transparent pigments work best: a lemon yellow, a warm yellow, quinacridone rose, a warm red, ultramarine, phthalo blue, burnt sienna and a neutral like Payne’s gray if you want convenience. Watercolor relies on paper for white, so titanium white is usually left out.
Gouache palette (8 to 9 colors)
Gouache follows the acrylic list closely. White is used heavily for tints, so many painters buy it in a larger tube.
How to Build a Color Palette for a Specific Painting
The starter palettes above are general tools. For a single painting, it often helps to narrow further. A simple four-step process:
- Identify the dominant temperature. Is the scene warm (sunset, desert, candlelight) or cool (snow, moonlight, overcast sea)? Lean the palette that way.
- Pick a key color. Choose the one hue that defines the mood, such as a teal for a seascape or an orange for autumn.
- Choose its partners. Add the pigments needed to mix that key color and its complement, which will be used to gray it down in shadows.
- Test-mix a swatch strip. Before painting, mix five or six target colors on scrap paper. If you cannot reach one, adjust the palette before starting.
Three proven limited palettes to try
| Palette | Colors | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Zorn-style | Yellow ochre, cadmium red light, ivory black, titanium white | Portraits and figures with warm, earthy harmony |
| Cool landscape | Lemon yellow, quinacridone rose, phthalo blue, white | Snow scenes, seascapes, misty mornings |
| Earth palette | Yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, ultramarine, white | Tonal studies, rustic still lifes, autumn landscapes |
In the Zorn-style palette, ivory black works as a weak blue; mixed with yellow ochre it gives surprisingly convincing muted greens.
How to Arrange Colors on Your Palette
Placement matters almost as much as selection. A consistent layout lets your hand find colors without looking, the way a typist finds keys.
- Go around the edge. Place colors along the outer rim and keep the center open for mixing.
- Order by temperature or hue. A common sequence is white, yellows, oranges, reds, violets, blues, greens, earths. Some painters arrange light to dark instead.
- Give white its own corner. You will use more white than any other color, and it is easily contaminated. Place it apart, often nearest your dominant hand.
- Keep earths together so you do not accidentally dip into burnt umber when reaching for red.
- Use the same layout every time. Consistency is the whole point.
On a small palette, this discipline matters even more. A compact layout with eight colors around the rim and a clear center is easy to manage and easy to clean. Our step-by-step palette cleaning guide covers how to keep that surface in good shape between sessions.
How Much Paint to Put Out
A pea-sized to grape-sized amount of each color is usually enough for a small to medium painting session. Put out more white, often two or three times as much. You can always add paint; dried or skinned-over piles are wasted. In oil, unused paint can sometimes be saved by covering the palette in plastic wrap or placing it in the freezer, a trick many oil painters use, though results vary with the paint.
How to Make a Good Color Palette Harmonious
Owning the right tubes is half the job. Using them to create harmony is the other half.
- Mix a “mother color.” Some painters create a neutral from leftovers and add a little to most mixes. It ties everything together.
- Gray with complements, not black. Red neutralized with a touch of green stays alive; red dulled with black often looks dirty.
- Repeat colors across the canvas. Place a little of the sky color in the foreground and vice versa.
- Limit saturated accents. Save the brightest, purest color for focal points.
Optional Colors Worth Adding Later
Once the core palette feels familiar, a few additions earn their space because they are hard to mix from primaries.
| Color | Why add it | Mixing note |
|---|---|---|
| Dioxazine purple | Deep violets brighter than red-plus-blue mixes | Very strong; also makes rich darks with yellow ochre |
| Phthalo green | Intense, clean greens and teals | Use sparingly; it stains other mixes quickly |
| Burnt sienna | Warm earth for skin, wood and brick | With ultramarine, gives a range of warm and cool grays |
| Cadmium orange | Saturated oranges for sunsets and fruit | Saves time compared with mixing red and yellow each session |
| Raw umber | A cooler, greenish brown | Useful for toning down greens without warming them |
Add one color at a time and paint with it for a few weeks before adding another. That way you learn what each new pigment actually contributes.
How to Create a Color Mixing Chart
A mixing chart is the fastest way to learn what your palette can do. It also shows which colors overlap so you can trim the palette.
- Draw a grid on heavy paper with one row and one column for each color on your palette.
- Paint the pure color in the first square of each row and column.
- In each intersecting square, mix the row color and column color in roughly equal amounts.
- For extra information, add a strip under each square showing the mix lightened with white (or diluted with water for watercolor).
- Label the pigment names and keep the chart near your painting area.
Within an hour you will see, for example, that ultramarine plus burnt umber makes a near-black, that phthalo blue plus lemon yellow gives a bright spring green, and that magenta plus ultramarine makes a clean violet. Those discoveries stick far better than reading about them.
Common Mistakes When Choosing Palette Colors
- Squeezing out every tube in the set. Twenty colors on a palette causes confusion and mud.
- Relying on tube black for shadows. Mixed darks from complements look richer.
- Buying only “convenience” colors. Pre-mixed greens and purples are useful but can limit learning.
- Ignoring pigment strength. Phthalo blue and quinacridone magenta can overpower weaker colors. Add them in tiny amounts.
- Changing the layout each time. It slows you down and leads to mistakes.
- Not reading pigment codes. Two colors with different names may share the same pigment (for example, PB29 is ultramarine across brands). Checking the code prevents buying duplicates.
Tips by Skill Level
Beginners
Start with five: white, a cool yellow, a warm red, ultramarine blue and burnt umber. Make a mixing chart pairing every color with every other color. It takes an hour and teaches more than a dozen paintings.
Intermediate
Move to the full split-primary palette and practice painting the same subject with two different limited palettes. Notice how the mood changes.
Advanced
Build custom palettes per project. Experiment with single-pigment colors for cleaner mixes, and track favorite combinations in a notebook.
FAQs
What are the basic colors for a painting palette?
A practical basic set is titanium white, a cool yellow, a warm yellow, a warm red, a cool red, a warm blue, a cool blue and one earth color such as burnt umber. This split-primary setup mixes nearly every color you need.
How many colors should be on a painting palette?
Most painters work well with six to twelve. Beginners often do best with five or six, which forces them to learn mixing. More than about fifteen usually adds confusion rather than range.
How do I make a color palette for painting?
Decide the mood and dominant temperature of the painting, choose a key color, add the pigments needed to mix it and its complement, then test-mix a strip of target colors before you start.
Do I need black on my palette?
No. Many painters mix darks from ultramarine and burnt umber or from complementary pairs. Black is useful in some limited palettes, like the Zorn-style setup, where it doubles as a muted blue.
What order should colors go on a palette?
A common order runs white, yellows, reds, blues, greens, then earth tones around the outer edge. The exact order matters less than keeping it consistent every session.
Is the same palette good for acrylic and oil?
Largely yes. The split-primary idea works in both. Specific pigment names may differ slightly, and oils allow you to lay out more paint because they dry slowly.
Final Thoughts
The right colors on a painting palette are fewer than most people expect: two of each primary, white and an earth tone will carry you a very long way. Pair that with a consistent layout and you will mix faster, waste less paint and get more harmonious results. If your current palette is too big or awkward to keep organized, take a look at our picks for a compact palette built for detail and control.
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