The best book about painting technique I have read is Kurt Wehlte's "Werkstoffe und Techniken der Malerei".
Palette:
All you'll ever need to paint a realistic painting is a small set of colors. Frans Hals used these:
Black, Red, Ochre, White. That's it.
For ambitious paintings that require lots of different colors I recommend the following travel-friendly palette:
Light Ochre (be sure not to buy a color that has been mixed with white.)
Raw Umber (may be greenish)
Cadmium Red (very strong, be careful with it; take a middle or dark hue)
Ultramarine Blue (dark, can always be mixed with white for light blue)
Titanum White (it is opaque)
Bone Black
Optional colors:
Burnt Sienna (may be achieved by mixing Umber, Ochre and a bit Red)
Burnt Umber (warmer color)
Scarlet Lake (the Naphtol Azo Version; natural scarlet lake is rarely sold; useful for reddish skin tones and lips)
Cadmium Yellow (most of the time, ochre mixed with white is yellow enough)
Chrome-oxide-hydrate Green (most other green hues can be mixed from blue and ochre/yellow)
Zinc White (translucent; aids as UV filter by turning UV light into visible light; useful for brightening lightly)
- Umber contains manganese; it aids as siccative in oil painting, which means it makes the colors that are mixed with it dry faster. If you are using lots of umber, your painting may be dry to the touch within one or two days, as opposed to Zinc White, which takes weeks to dry.
Colors:
If you want to work fast or are travelling, acrylic colors work best. Good acrylic colors are even useful as watercolors. Good colors are composed of only one single pigment and acrylic resin without filler. Excellent brands (in descending order of quality): Golden Acrylics, Liquitex, Schmincke.
Oil colors are mostly of good quality, regardless from which company they come from. But if you want to work with the best possible colors, you'll sooner or later buy "Michael Harding's artists colours" or make your own.
