A student asked:
Hi Barry
Thanks for the critique, just a couple of questions regarding my choice of palette.
By using only four colors, 2 reds, a blue and a yellow, did I have a wide enough range of colors to give me enough choice of shades etc, or should I have chosen a cool and warm value of each primary?
Finally If you were doing the same picture what colors would you have chosen?

To the left is my copy* of a painting by Gericault (Jean Louis André Theodore Gericault) His palette and his coloring of a Caucasian male is full of color ... unlike most painters, he leads the way in both the observation of color variations and emphasizing them in his dramatic flair to create interest and drama beyond what most painters might see or have the skills to paint. Gericault chose a flamboyant use of color in this nude study with a much wider palette color range that most would use. I think it's brilliant and very real. * A copy of his painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City

1. You chose a narrow range of colors - totally legitimate ... one of the heads you sent me as an  "hyper-realistic" sample below has a very narrow range of color ...again artists' choice ...again totally legitimate

2. Other artists choose broader palette: Look at the following link
http://www.gamblincolors.com/oil.painting.techniques/palettes.html
 ... here you will find a great range of color palette examples with clickable listings of the colors shown on the Gamblin palette picture page link above ... click on each palette image to see the listings of colors for that palette. (Note: This site is Gamblin's USA web site ...they do not ship abroad unless the order is large (check the site for amount). I do know that there is a UK web art supplier that carries Gamblin.

 3. For specific Portrait Painting palettes others use, go to:

http://dearartist.blogspot.com/2005/12/portrait-color-palette.html

and

http://www.loudounacademy.org/supplylisttrigianipaint.html

4. A wild card --- some artists use FLESH color oils along with the other reds, yellow, blues, etc you used and those listed in the various palettes listed and linked in # 3 above. Here are some that Daniel Smith and Dick Blick sell online, but artists not in the USA may need to explore their country's oil paint sources for them since US based web art suppliers may not ship overseas:
4a: Daniel Smith Flesh Oil Color
4b: Dick Blick Winton Flesh Oil Color

5. The bottom line ... students studying and exploring drawing, painting, palettes and more ...have to experiment, try as many as your time and budget allow and find out what suits YOUR needs. All palettes are legitimate - what works for each artist is what works for them.

6. Finally , there IS NO one-size-fits-all-palette ...look at the image just below, a magazine cover oil painting I did for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (it is cropped and does not have the lettering as it appeared on the cover, this is a cropped scan of the original oil.

Do you think the sun struck foreground figures and the nearly hidden guy in the doorway to the right are the same palette? ... no way.