McNear's Palm Tree

oil on canvas panel 14" by 11' plein air. McNear's beach is just south of China Camp State Beach Park at Point San Pedro and has many of the same vistas as China Camp with some really cool palms along the water. I got a lot more color into this one and used the colors in Frank Seranno's palette to get ready for his Fall Sierra workshop next month. Palette is Gamblin's Quick Dry White, Cadmium Yellow Light, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue and Thalo Green plus Utrecht Yellow Ochre. I use Gamblin's Galkyd Lite as my medium and this is painted alla prima with just a signature and a few touch-ups in the studio.

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Comment by Stuart J. Gourlay on September 6, 2014 at 21:04: Thanks Ian. The simplest palette is just 3 primary colors plus white; this is called a "primary palette". Many artists use a "split primary" palette with warm and cool of each primary plus white. The other colors added to these are often just "convenience colors" and are usually a secondary color (orange, green or purple) that is used to desaturate a primary (green with red, purple with yellow, orange with blue) or an earth color ( burnt sienna, yellow ochre) or grays. Also a different palette would be used for the desert than for the tropics. I switch and try new colors every once in awhile anyway, but this time I am getting ready for a workshop next month with Frank Seranno, and this is his palette. Michael and Laura are taking the workshop too. When I take a workshop from an experienced artist I will always use their palette during the workshop and may find a particular color that I prefer to one I have been using. The big PRO with a limited palette is better color harmony and the big CON is more time spent mixing. But all that mixing makes an artist pretty good at quickly mixing colors to match, or to contrast with other colors. Oil colors change only slightly as they dry, but water soluble media (watercolors, gouache, acrylics) change a lot by darkening or lightening as they dry and are much tougher to use with a limited palette. Happy painting; keep up the plein air painting because, trust me, it gets better and better, both in quality and ease of painting. Stu

Comment by Stuart J. Gourlay on September 6, 2014 at 16:02: Thanks Olivia. Stu

Comment by Olivia O'Carra on September 6, 2014 at 7:13: Lovely job. I like those warm and cool purples in the trunk

Comment by Stuart J. Gourlay on September 2, 2014 at 19:44: Thanks Michael; this was fun to do. Stu

Comment by Michael J. Severin on September 2, 2014 at 17:34: Stu, I really love this painting!!! ....Wow, great work. I love the color and atmosphere ....breaking out of your grays ..quite nice!!