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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Four Palettes, Four Paintings

In the current (July/August 2011) issue of The Artist's Magazine, I have an article on exploring different oil palettes for plein air painting.  For the article, I made four paintings to demonstrate each of the palettes.  Because I am done with these pieces now, I am offering them for sale as a group.

The paintings are of Southern Head on Grand Manan Island in the Canadian Maritimes, just off the coast of New Brunswick.  Grand Manan is known for its tall cliffs and as a source of the edible seaweed, dulse.  The novelist Willa Cather summered there, and Audubon painted birds on its coast.  I like it because it always seems remote, and you can find some great landscape painting there.  On one of my trips, I painted Southern Head, and it was that painting that I used as a basis for paintings I made for the article.

The four paintings would make a nice grouping, or they would be valuable for the student to have and study.  They are on 8x10 sheets of archival mat board and not framed.  On the backs, the paintings are labelled as to which palette was used in creating it.  I will also include a fifth painting, the original painting, which is 9x12 on panel.  For the record, the palettes are:

  • Limited earth color (yellow ochre, burnt sienna, ivory black, white)
  • Limited primary palette (ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow light, cadmium red light, white)
  • Limited primary palette with Naples yellow replacing the white
  • Split-primary palette with four values of grey (cadmium yellow light, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red light, permanent alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, phthalo green, and Portland Grey light, medium, dark and chromatic black)
  • Split-primary palette (same as above, but no grey or black)

All paints are from Gamblin.

I am taking offers until June 4th, Saturday noon Atlantic Time.  If you're interested, e-mail your offer to mcj.painter@gmail.com.  The minimum I'd accept is $250 for the lot. I will need to add $10 shipping to your offer.   Payment can be Paypal, credit card or cheque.

Below are the paintings.  I think you'll like them!  I had a lot of fun painting them.

Earth Palette, 8x10

Limited Primary Palette, 8x10

Limited Primary Palette plus Naples Yellow, 8x10

Split-Primary Palette with Greys, 8x10

Split-Primary Palette (no grey or black), 9x12