
John Nash on his and his brother Paul's use of colour:
"When we were young we made it our business to use good colours and permanent colours from a purely business-like point of view, and this forces one to a certain palette. So Paul and I went for the three-star, four-star colours according to the colourman's catalogue. But we knew little about them or what happened to these colours in time. I was very surprised, after Paul died, when I went through the great mass of paints that he had, how very limited his colours were, not only in numbers but in intensity. I shouldn't have thought that he ever had such a colour as cobalt violet or rose madder in his studio at all. My own palette was also considerably limited. I'm not a brilliant colourist - I'd very much like to be one! Other artists' use of brilliant colour causes a certain envy in me. I have to use a lot of variations of green in my landscapes.
As regards actual colours, I use about two blues, cobalt and permanent, viridian, a strong green which I usually have to tone down with yellow ochre, and combinations of yellows and blues. I also love the earth colours, Venetian red and Devon red-yellow ochre. The subtleties of the English landscape ... are all very quiet and a limited palette serves one's end."
As quoted by Ronald Blythe in The Time by the Sea: Aldeburgh 1955-1958