Ever heard of a plucot? It’s a cross between a plum and an apricot. One of these may be a pluot, which is apparently a similar cross but one is more apricot-like and the other more plum-like. In any case they were fun to paint.

6.5 inches x 8.5 inches oil on gessoed paper

I’ve expanded my palette a bit. I was having a lot of trouble achieving a full range of values and intensities using a strict limited palette. For instance, I can mix a range of colors from yellow to red using alizarin and yellow ochre, but if I want a lighter value I have to add white which lessens intensity. I can get a lighter value higher intensity yellow using cadmium yellow light. Anyway, I’m learning a lot from these little sketches.

It occurs to me that I should have learned this stuff years ago when I studied painting in college. It’s easy to blame the curriculum or my instructors or the times. The focus, in the 1970s, when I was in college, was on content, not on the fundamentals of constructing a painting, etc. There may be some truth in that, but it’s also true that my focus, as young man, was more on beer, women and the bohemian lifestyle than on learning to paint. As they say, youth is wasted on the young. Ces’t la vie.