I love my gradient nodes, but they are a tad slow if you have a bunch of them. And for a simple one-color gradient, they are overkill. For that common use case you don't need the full power of my palette node inside them.

For that "blue sky" use case I made this variant: fast_gradient. Fast_gradient creates a simple, linear gradient based on one color. It takes the following parameters:

• Shape. The shape holding the gradient
• Color. The base color of the gradient
• Angle. The angle at which the linear gradient will spread
• Total bands. The total number of bands forming the gradient: low for stripes, higher (e.g. 100) for smooth
• Saturation range. The increase (up to 100%) or decrease (down to -100%) of the color's saturation
• Brightness range. The increase (up to 100%) or decrease (down to -100%) of the color's brightness
• Alpha range. The increase (up to 100%) or decrease (down to -100%) of the color's alpha (opacity)

If you peek inside you will see that it uses my complement and inter_color nodes instead of my palette node. Fast_gradient doesn't provide the richness of my gradient_L and gradient_R nodes, but it renders at least twice as fast and is also quicker to use, since you don't have to experiment with a full color palette. It's great for quick canvas backgrounds!

Enjoy.