Johnnie Liliedahl: English Cottage

Choose only three primary colors, plus black and white, and you'll be amazed at how many colors you can mix from this limited palette. The Old Masters used a few transparent colors to achieve richness and depth by glazing luminous dark areas.

White makes any mixture opaque, so you double the number of colors you can make from the three primaries with its addition to the palette.

Try three primary colors (different from the ones used in this video) on your limited palette and see how the change in palette offers new color ranges without sacrificing the unity of a color scheme. More colors often create discordant color notes, so avoid that pitfall by limiting your palette to only five paints: red, yellow, blue, black and white.

Printed instructions accompany the video so that you can paint along. Learn old master methods of underpainting, glazing, scumbling and impasto using only three colors (red, yellow, blue) plus black and white.