Painting : Color Gamut (Painting with a Limited Palette)

Color Gamut

Painting with a Limited Palette

Examples of various color palettes for a single subject.

Many paintings are made with a limited palette. Limited palette can be used to indicate a time of day, mood, setting, and location. Twilight for example, or a night scene will have a limited palette because the full bright white light of the sun is not present. Without it the perceived colors of objects are changed. Additionally, a weather situation like a snowstorm or rainstorm changes the lighting conditions and hence alters the colors that one perceives. Other times a modified palette may be useful in communicating that something is off, to communicate warmth and comfort, to suggest an alien landscape, to create an anxious feeling in the viewer, to create a dreamlike space or make a scene appear nostalgic. These are just a few of the reasons to employ a limited gamut (or limited palette).

Below are two scenes from The Theory of Everything. Each has its own limited color palette created through lighting, setting, props, and clothing choices.

Scene from *The Theory of Everything.* Complementary colors are used (low chroma orange and blue). Notice that the blue is used to help the female figure standout.

Scene from *The Theory of Everything.* The figures in this scene all seem to "be on the same page". They are unified mentally because we see them unified through color (low chroma blue-green, blues, and greens).

Some common ways of limiting the palette are using: complementary colors only, analogous colors only, or low-chroma colors only. Some examples are below.

Complementary color example (oranges and blues)

A painting in orange, reds, and yellows by Frank Auerbach. It is titled E.O.W., S.A.W., J.J.W. in the Garden I. It was created in 1963, oil on canvas. — Analogous color example (yellows, oranges, and reds).
Frank Auerbach
*E.O.W., S.A.W., J.J.W. in the Garden I*
1963, oil on canvas.

Low chroma cool palette example.
Frederick Remington
*Untitled (Night Rider), Alternate Title: The Night Herder*
c. 1908, oil on board, 12 ⅛ x 18 inches

Low chroma example. Digital image by John Park titled *Snow*.

Low chroma example with hint of oranges and blue.

Limited palette painting by Colleen Barry, (orange, yellow, and green)

Our mind perceives colors based on the colors that are around them. Our mind also makes adjustments for perceives quality of light. In this limited color still-life below most viewers see the bananas as yellow bananas, yet they are made from greens, blues, and browns.

Click triangle in center to play video.

Choosing a palette

How does one choose one's palette. More straightfoward palettes like the examples above may be selected using a color wheel such as complementary or analogous for example. Low-chroma palette can be created through making a decision to eliminate any color with a higher chroma, but how does one select or create a more "complex" limited palette. James Gurney offers one method on his blog.

Gurney's method employs a sheet of paper to mask out much of the color wheel and the area that is un-masked contains the colors we use for a particular painting (or series of paintings). The un-masked portion is our new gamut or palette. Gurney works with a triangle mask and essentially selects a new set of primaries which replace the traditional primaries: yellow, red, and blue. After selecting the three new primaries, he draws a straight-line between them and cuts the mask to reveal the newly selected gamut.

Example of a palette mask created by James Gurney.

James Gurney's unmasked color wheel for selecting a palette.

Jason Bronner's example of an Ostwald inspired palette made with Illustrator as a PDF.

updated Sept 12, 2025