Chromatic dark (no tube black)
ΔE 1.8- 5 parts Viridian
- 4 parts Ultramarine Blue
- 3 parts Alizarin Crimson strong tinter
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Reads as a match in a painting.
Limited palette, mapped
The Impressionist (no black) palette: what it can mix and what it can’t
The mixable gamut of the Impressionist (no black) oil palette, computed tube by tube with Kubelka–Munk pigment physics. Colours shown at full strength are reachable by some mix of the tubes. The dimmed region is out of reach at any ratio.
See this gamut in Halftint
The same wheel, computed for the tubes you own. Free.
Same palette, three values. Coverage is the share of the hue/saturation disc within ΔE 3 of a physically mixable colour, on the same engine and threshold the app uses. Tube colours are chart-derived and labelled approximate; see the method page.
The tubes
- Titanium White
- Cadmium Yellow Light
- Cadmium Red Light
- Alizarin Crimson
- Ultramarine Blue
- Viridian
Cadmium yellow light, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson, ultramarine, viridian, titanium white, and no black. The Impressionist wager was that shadow is colour too, and the computed wheels above show what the wager buys: the largest mid-value territory of the classic palettes, including the violets and sea-greens the Zorn and earth palettes never touch.
The price of leaving out black is that your darks must be mixed, ultramarine against alizarin and viridian, which is why the first recipe below is a chromatic near-black with no black in it. The territory still has edges. The highest-chroma magentas, teals and cyans belong to pigments this palette does not carry.
What it cannot reach
What stays out of reach sits where the modern synthetic pigments live: quinacridone magentas and phthalo teals. The numbers, and the one tube that would fix each:
| Target | Target vs closest mix | Gap | One tube that closes it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturated magenta | ΔE 10.3 | Permanent Rose (Quin.) → ΔE 4 | |
| Deep saturated violet | ΔE 11.3 | Permanent Rose (Quin.) → ΔE 9 | |
| Phthalo-strength teal | ΔE 4.1 | Cerulean Blue → ΔE 1.9 | |
| Vivid spring green | ΔE 4.7 | Permanent Green Light → ΔE 2.4 | |
| Saturated cyan | ΔE 7.7 | Cobalt Blue → ΔE 3.7 |
Every number is computed with the same engine the app runs: the closest mix the Impressionist (no black) tubes can make, how far it falls short, and the single tube (from the generic single-pigment range) that best closes the gap.
Signature mixes, in knife-parts
The signature moves, computed to whole knife-parts, including the palette’s party trick, a rich dark with no tube black in it.
Lilac shadow
ΔE 1.3- 3 parts Titanium White
- 3 parts Ultramarine Blue
- 1 part Alizarin Crimson strong tinter
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Below a trained eye’s threshold.
Sea green
ΔE 2.2- 4 parts Ultramarine Blue
- 3 parts Titanium White
- 2 parts Viridian
- 2 parts Cadmium Yellow Light
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Reads as a match in a painting.
Sunset orange
ΔE 3.8- 6 parts Cadmium Red Light
- 4 parts Titanium White
- 4 parts Cadmium Yellow Light
- 1 part Viridian
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Reads as a match in a painting.
Against the alternatives
The limited-palette debate is a gamut argument, so compare gamuts. Same engine, same mid value:
Keep exploring
Now draw the map for your own palette
Load the tubes you own, from the brand lists or as custom entries by pigment code, and Halftint computes your range, with knife-part recipes for everything inside it and the ΔE for everything that isn’t.
Open Halftint