Flesh half-tint
ΔE 2- 7 parts Yellow Ochre
- 4 parts Titanium White
- 3 parts Cadmium Red Light
- 2 parts Ivory Black
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Reads as a match in a painting.
Limited palette, mapped
The Zorn palette: what it can mix and what it can’t
The mixable gamut of the Zorn 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
- Yellow Ochre
- Cadmium Red Light
- Ivory Black
Yellow ochre, cadmium red light, ivory black, titanium white. One side says these four tubes taught them more about colour than years of buying paint. The other says the palette falls apart the moment you point it at a June landscape. Both are right, and the argument only settles when you draw the territory, which is what the wheels above are: the set of colours the four tubes can physically mix, computed with Kubelka–Munk pigment physics at three values. Everything dimmed is out of reach at any ratio.
The shape is a lopsided wedge. It bulges through the warm side (oranges, terracottas, golden umbers, and a large, finely graded region of flesh) and thins on the cool side to a corridor of slate greys and olive drabs, where ivory black is quietly playing the part of blue. The argument is in the Zorn article. This page is the map.
What it cannot reach
No mixture of these four tubes reaches a cerulean sky, a true violet or a spring green, and the numbers say by how much. A ΔE in double digits is a difference you would spot from across the room.
| Target | Target vs closest mix | Gap | One tube that closes it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cerulean summer sky | ΔE 13.9 | Cobalt Blue → ΔE 1.1 | |
| True violet | ΔE 21.8 | Dioxazine Purple → ΔE 10.2 | |
| Spring foliage green | ΔE 12.4 | Permanent Green Light → ΔE 2 | |
| Teal | ΔE 10.4 | Cerulean Blue → ΔE 1.4 | |
| Rose magenta | ΔE 13.5 | Permanent Rose (Quin.) → ΔE 0.4 |
Every number is computed with the same engine the app runs: the closest mix the Zorn 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
What the wedge does contain, it mixes well. These are computed knife-part recipes for the palette’s signature notes, rounded to whole parts a knife can measure, in mixing order, with the rounding cost included in the stated ΔE.
Flesh shadow
ΔE 0.9- 3 parts Yellow Ochre
- 3 parts Ivory Black
- 2 parts Titanium White
- 2 parts Cadmium Red Light
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Below a trained eye’s threshold.
Zorn “blue” (slate grey)
ΔE 3- 2 parts Ivory Black
- 1 part Titanium White
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Reads as a match in a painting.
Olive-drab green
ΔE 1.4- 7 parts Ivory Black
- 6 parts Yellow Ochre
- 3 parts Titanium White
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Below a trained eye’s threshold.
Terracotta
ΔE 1.2- 5 parts Cadmium Red Light
- 4 parts Yellow Ochre
- 3 parts Ivory Black
- 2 parts Titanium White
Target beside the rounded-parts mix; in mixing order, strongest pigment last. Below a trained eye’s threshold.
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