“An esthetic warning: always think twice before using white. It can give your pictures a chalky look. If you want to lighten a color, sometimes try using another color instead of white. If you want your pictures to have brilliance, think in terms of more color, not lighter color.
Paul Strisik, “The Art of Landscape Painting”, page 13
I think the default setting ought to be “as often as possible” try something other than white, not “sometimes”.
Also a combination of something else and a little white rather than only white.
Not forgetting that if you’re painting on a white ground with acrylics or oils this can be used with a thin application of a transparent colour to ‘lighten’ the colour as you’d do with watercolour and paper. Or if the whole canvas is covered, you can paint an area white and then glaze over the top with a transparent colour.
And remembering that when a subject is white, it’s rarely “tube white” all over. Not even daisies.
