Famous American landscape painter John Pototschnik once said, “I believe in simplicity.” And when it comes to painting, simplicity doesn't mean a lack of skill...it means clarity. It means deliberate choices. For me, that’s what a limited palette is all about.
There’s something wonderfully liberating about having fewer colors on your palette. It allows you to focus on harmony, light, and value rather than juggling dozens of pigments. It might sound counterintuitive, but if your goal is realism, simplifying your color choices might actually bring you closer to the result you’re after.
Let’s explore how realistic painting can thrive within the boundaries of a limited palette.
What Is a Limited Palette?
A limited palette is a small, intentional selection of colors used to create a painting, or even a whole body of work. Typically, this means using only three to five pigments, usually the primary colors plus titanium white. Occasionally, an artist might add a secondary or an earth tone to round things out.
Instead of pulling from every tube on the shelf, you're choosing just a few key players. The result? A cohesive, harmonious painting where every color feels like it belongs, since all blends are composed of the same pigments in varying proportions.
By working within limitations, you end up gaining more control over your work. You simplify your mixing process, strengthen your understanding of value, and remove the stress of figuring out whether your colors are clashing. It’s a powerful tool, especially when painting something complex, such as a landscape.
Why Realism Works with Fewer Colors
You might be thinking, “But I want to paint realistically; don’t I need more colors for that?” Actually, the opposite might be true.
A common misconception is that realism requires an exact replication of every visible hue. But in practice, too many pre-mixed colors can actually distract from the essence of what you’re trying to capture. More colors can mean more opportunities for clashing tones, and it becomes harder to create unity across your painting.
Let’s say you're painting a landscape composed mostly of warm, earthy tones. If you introduce a tube of cool green, it might feel jarring. Or imagine a piece filled with soft purples and blues...then suddenly there's a shock of cadmium orange that doesn't feel like it belongs. The color might technically be “accurate” to your reference, but it breaks the visual harmony.
Remember, we're creating paintings, NOT replicating photos. It's our job to make something even more beautiful than what the camera captures, which means we can adjust the colors or composition to make it better.
When you use a limited palette, all your colors are mixed from the same few sources. That means every hue in your painting will relate to the others, even when they contrast. And when your colors relate, your painting feels whole - and real.
Another bonus? With just a few pigments, you learn to tone and mute your colors using their complementary opposites. That creates natural, lifelike colors that are far more nuanced than anything straight out of the tube.
How to Choose the Right Colors for a Realistic Limited Palette
There’s no single “correct” limited palette—but there are definitely combinations that work better than others, especially when your goal is realism.
My personal go-to is this four-color setup:
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A cool red – I love using quinacridone magenta, quinacridone red, or permanent alizarin crimson. I find cool reds much more versatile than warm reds like cadmium red medium.
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Cadmium yellow – Depending on the painting, I’ll use light, medium, or deep.
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Ultramarine blue – A beautifully rich, flexible blue that can go warm or cool.
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Burnt umber – This is my go to. I love the earthy warmth and grounded depth it brings. When combined with ultramarine blue, you can fantastic warm and cool tones, or can mix your own blacks.
This combo gives me a full range of hues without overwhelming my canvas. I can mix greens, oranges, purples, and even neutral tones using just these pigments. And if I ever need a more vivid punch - say, for a fall landscape or flower painting - I might add cadmium red or phthalo blue. But those are the exceptions, not the rule.
The most important thing is that your colors work together. By testing how they mix, especially how they behave when muted with their complementary colors, you’ll get a better sense of how they’ll look across an entire painting.
Examples from My Own Work
I’ve used limited palettes in a wide range of my paintings, from florals to mountainscapes, and I always come back to how much clarity it brings to the process.
In my train paintings, I used limited palettes for both pieces with great success. Let's first look at Spirit of the North (below), which used a limited palette of quinacridone violet, cadmium yellow deep, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, and titanium white.
As you can see, having a simplified palette unified the lighting, giving it a cool, wintry effect. The best part was that it was actually less effort for me as a painter, since the colors were working together and doing the work for me.
Another example is my most recent painting, True North Strong:
In this painting, I actually omitted the burnt umber, and mixed all my browns by combining my primaries. For this painting, I used quinacridone violet, cadmium yellow deep, ultramarine blue, and titanium white. That's it.
Again, this took so much of the mixing pressure away from me, because no matter what, the lighting and colors felt unified. Even though it did take me a little longer sometimes to get the exact blend I was after, I'm very pleased with the result.
Even though I actually have to give most of the credit to the limited palette.
No matter the subject, when I paint with fewer colors, I find I’m more thoughtful with my color mixing. And more often than not, the end result feels more refined, more grounded...and ultimately, more realistic.
Final Thoughts
Using a limited palette is one of the best ways to build confidence in your painting practice. It teaches you to understand color mixing at a deeper level, helps your work stay harmonious, and gives you a stronger foundation for painting realistically.
Limiting your colors doesn’t limit your creativity...it unlocks it. By simplifying your tools, you make space for stronger value structure, more unified color stories, and ultimately, more intentional and powerful paintings.
If you’ve never tried painting with just three or four colors, it might feel a little scary at first. But trust me: once you see what’s possible with less, you might never go back.
If you liked this blog post, you should definitely download one of my FREE eBooks on Acrylic or Oil Painting. They've been read by 10K+ artists, and I'd love to send you your free copy! Grab your eBook here.
You can also check out a few of my other favourite blog posts:
How to Mix Colors in Acrylic: a Beginner Friendly Guide
Paintings or Photos?! How to Paint Realistic Landscapes with Acrylic Paint on Paper
Or, check out this YouTube tutorial on limited palettes here:
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