PALETTE
In terms of colour, from about 1900 onwards for outdoor work (as opposed to studio portraits), Sorolla dropped the “earth pigments” (umbers, etc) so his palette consisted of cobalt violet, rose madder, all the cadmium reds, cadmium orange, all the cadmium yellows, yellow ochre, chrome green, viridian, Prussian blue, cobalt blue, French ultramarine and lead white.
For studio portraits, he changed his palette entirely to one that included black, burnt umber, raw umber, rose madder, burnt sienna, raw sienna, yellow ochre, Naples yellow, vermilion and cobalt blue. Occasionally he would add orange, pink or purple, but he usually emphasized strong tonal contrasts over ambitious colour effects. [source: Charles Sovek Light & Colour Sorolla Style]
Joaquin Sorolla’s Self-portrait, 1909
In the studio Sorolla would sometimes use a palette the size of a grand piano lid and 3 foot long brushes to allow him to stand back from his painting.
