How I Organize My Oil Paint Colors by Temperature

I got to a point where I did not just want a red. I wanted a warm red or a cool red. I needed to know if a color was transparent before it hit the canvas, not twenty minutes into a mix that was never going to build. The old system was grabbing whatever was on the pegboard and hoping. That worked until it stopped working. So I rebuilt the whole thing. I swatched every oil paint color I own on canvas paper, punched each one with a hole punch, and attached the swatch to its tube. Then I sorted the entire collection by color family and by temperature inside each family. Warms together, cools together. The swatch shows me the real color in my studio light, not what the label says it is. The label is a guess. Gamblin Radiant Violet is very purple in real life. India Yellow is orange. Vasari matched exactly. You cannot tell which is which until you check. The system is not about tidiness. When a painting needs a cool palette, I can pull color that makes sense. Everything in front of me already works together. I am choosing instead of guessing. Earth colors and blacks are still in the go-back basket, which I love and also want to be empty, and those two things are in conflict, and the basket is currently winning. WHAT IS IN THIS EPISODE: [00:00] The oil paint wall before the rebuild [00:30] Why my paint practice outgrew the old organization [01:45] Defining the baseline oil paint palette [03:10] Palette extras and star players [05:00] Sorting by temperature inside each oil paint color family [06:40] Why oil paint tube labels are not enough [07:30] How the oil paint swatching process works [09:00] Organizing oil paint by color, tone, and temperature [10:45] Making the oil paint wall readable at a glance [12:15] Fitting larger oil paint tubes into the system [13:30] How the system feels to actually use [14:10] What is next READ MORE ON SUBSTACK Studio Notes has more on how this practice actually runs: → https://substack.com/@cherishrichards... Stay in touch Website: https://www.cherishrichardson.com Instagram:   / cherishrichardsonart   TikTok:   / cherishrichardson.art   Substack: https://substack.com/@cherishrichards... I'm Cherish. I paint people in oil and I share the real, slightly chaotic process of making that work. New episodes on Studio Notes. #oilpainting #figurativepainting #artistvlog