Artist of the month shares Work in progress!

 Hi everyone,
A couple of people have been very interested to know more about our Artist of the month Dan Vangeli's colour palette for his portraits. Today Dan has very kindly sent me some Work in progress photos from his most recent painting showing us the stages he goes through.

For all my paimtings I use a relatively small palette of about 10 colors...I use:
Transparent colors:
-cobalt blue
-aureolin yellow
-rose madder genuine
-veridian green
Staining colors:
Alizarin crimson
Winsor green (blue shade)
Olive green
Scarlett lake red
Burnt umber

 As for skin tones, it varies with each piece. but most of the time I start with the rose madder, alittle aureolin yellow, and add a little olive green. It gets a nice base skin tone.

I start very light, and build up from there adding scarlet lake, and cobalt blue to the mix. I use a large palette, and really use the mixing area to experiment until I find what I want.

  As far as avoiding the muddy darks, it gets a little tricker. I try first to just get deeper with the colors I am already using in the face, but sometimes, I do add a little burnt umber. I also make a mixed black using the alizarin crimson, and winsor green (blue shade) which I sometimes add to mix, but VERY little as it is overpowering. Alot of what I do is just experimenting. As I paint, I don't really think about the paint itself, I literally just mix things (having a basic idea of what colors make what I am looking for and pulling out what I like.

 Hope this helps to answer some of your questions