The Colors of Scott Christensen

When I first toyed with the idea of working en plein air, I had just discovered Scott Christensen, and I was a fast fan of his work.  I decided to emulate him by using his color palette when working out-of-doors, which, at the time, consisted of the following colors:

- Titanium White

- Ultramarine Blue

- Cadmium Yellow Pale (or cadmium lemon)

- Rembrandt Permanent Red, Medium

- Holbein Grey of Grey

- Rembrandt Cold Gray

My first forays into landscape oil sketches were made with these colors, and I was happy enough with the results.

Since then, however, Scott has worked with Vasari Classic Artists' Oil Colors in New York City to produce his most frequently mixed colors as ready-to-purchase, tubed pigments.  The line is not inexpensive (because of the cadmium yellow in the mixtures), but they are wonderful paints.  Vasari itself produces a high quality oil color, and these Christensen landscape colors are convenient to have on hand.

The Christensen colors Vasari produces are:

- Adobe (formerly called Red Rock)

- Bice

- Bluff

- Silver Point

- Jasper

- Shale

- Ship Rock

- Cedar

On my last plein air piece I used some of these colors (bice, jasper, shale, cedar, and ship rock), and I loved the ease of squeezing them right onto my palette.  Maybe, eventually, I will buy the remaining colors in the series.

(Images in this post are sketches by Christensen.  The best of these he enlarges in his studio.)