Palmettos? That's very specific, but here's why I'm sharing tips: it's a very difficult subject to paint well. When I moved to the southeastern U.S. and first started painting them, I really wasn't doing them justice. After years of palmettos popping up in my landscape paintings, I've only recently gotten good at painting them, so today I will share with you the skills I have learned. If you don't plan on ever painting a palmetto, no worries—these tips apply to most anything with a lot of detail.
In your underpainting, whether you begin with blocked-in areas, a sketchy drawing or more of a toned canvas, give yourself some indication of the location of the main palmetto shapes. At this stage it's best to capture the gesture of the individual frond and its overall shape and size rather than its pointed leaf tips, which can come later. Think a loosely drawn oval with a few lines indicating the direction of growth. Even locating just a few of the main palmettos you see in a big cluster of them will help you find your way around in later stages.
Next, block in some of the darker values and mix a background color that will recede behind your palmettos. Sometimes an olivey green works well here, and I have also found that violet hues are a nice balance with the greens of the palmettos.
At this point, I let these underlying stages dry before proceeding, but it's not necessary. A nice thing about working wet-on-wet is that the brushes glide over the canvas rather than dragging, which yields broken lines. If your underpainting IS dry, you can still work wet-on-wet with a wash of solvent or by oiling out (brushing on linseed oil and wiping the excess off with a rag).
My very best tip for success in painting palmettos: BREAK OUT A BRAND NEW BRUSH! I order a lot of brushes at a time and keep a stash in a drawer. My favorite are Rosemary short flat ivory bristle brushes. I have better results with brushes than with the wide variety of painting knives I have tried. I can't seem to control the amount of paint I'm applying with a knife.
Pre-mix a variety of the greens you will be using in your palmettos. I mix a warm green in about three values, a cool green also in several values, a dark and some grayish blue-green for reflected light, but of course this depends on the lighting in your scene.
Assuming your painting is well underway and it is ready for details, take this new brush, load a small amount of a color on the end and dot where the tip of a palmetto frond ends. Repeat for its neighbors. Also paint a dot at the base of the frond, which is often a burnt sienna color. Then load a brush, start at this base and decisively paint a line to the tip of each frond.
This kind of careful placement is only necessary with the primary palmettos in your painting. For a mass of them, it looks best if you are NOT careful, but keep a light touch and think “sketchy” while painting the palmettos quickly. Wipe off what you're not happy with, and go back to add more detail if needed. I'm never happy when something I've painted looks too labored and careful. The energy of your brushstroke will make it right.
Try to ENJOY this process because it will show in your work if you do! I wish you success.
Comment below if you have questions and please share your own suggestions.
