Limited Palette tonal painting

Square up and copy or trace a black and white photograph on to a primed board

Simply outline the areas of differing tone in the image – create a sort of map of tones.

Try to recognise where tones are similar  - you could even number them on an scale of say 1 – 5.

Creating the palette:
Mix colours on an palette and arrange them in tonal groups . The ‘hue ‘ and ‘intensity’ of your mixtures will vary according to what you want  to  depict but teh tones should correspond to those in your black and white photograph.

Premixing all of your colours will take time but allow you to consider their relationships and allow you to  create a harmonious set  

Paint the image very directly. . Fill in the traced tonal areas in the manner of ‘paint by numbers' .