“GREEN - keep looking and doing to get the hang of it”

The excellent Robert Genn, in his regular newsletter, recently sent me a missive all about painting GREEN.  He suggested avoiding emerald green, Pthalo green and “Kelly” greens (whatever they are) and turn instead to chromium oxide green,  sap green, Kenkins green, Olive deep green….he said:

 “You need to look long and hard at that green thing and try to figure out its makeup in pigment. A broad hint--not to be taken as universal--in nature, greens are often loaded with orange. A good rule is not to squeeze out any green without squeezing out a decent dollop of orange.”

For once, although I agree with most of what he says,  I had some problems with the first sentence in this statement.  While I do agree that brilliant emerald greens tend to look pretty ghastly in a painting if they are meant to look "real", on the other hand I don’t like this opening sentence.  Just staring hard, and long, will give you very few answers, imho, if you know nothing about pigments, or colour theory, and have preconceived ideas about green. 

look at all the different "local colours" of green we have here, from the cool blue-grey greens in the foregrounds, to the rich dark greens in the distance.  Such variety.

I've added a stripe of emerald green.  Do any of the natural greens in this image look like this?

EITHER/OR. 

1.      the real greens in nature, are modified by two things – the “local” colour – ie, some leaves are actually olive green, some are grey-green, some are almost silver, for example  – as in the top photo above

and 

2. they are modified by the type of LIGHT falling onto the surface.  Any colour of leaf will be one shade in sunlight, quite another in shadow.

the sunlight paints some of these leaves with vivid yellow light

If you want to paint your greens realistically, you need to take 1 and 2 very much into account.

OR

3.     It is quite different when you decide to paint something where the colours you use are exaggerated or altered deliberately, to emphasise a particular colour-scheme, temperature, or atmosphere.  My recent series of woodland scenes is a case in point, I altered the greens quite deliberately, to conform to my ideas about cool spring light.

sorry, if you have seen it before!

Paul Gauguin deliberately chose vivid yellows and harsh unnatural greens for this image...but actually, the whole image is rather stylised and therefore somewhat unnatural so he could use whatever colours he wanted, to be in keeping with his vision, and to create the atmosphere he wanted.  They are very unlikely to be the actual greens he saw with the naked eye!

If you want to gain a good understanding of how to tackle green, the place to begin is a good book on colour theory…in particular, the learning about COLOUR TEMPERATURE.  How can you possibly understand how to adjust your greens, without understanding WHY you are adjusting them, and HOW to do so?  I don't intend to write a treatise on green colour theory here, I just wanted to shake things up a little IF you are someone who rather relies on the greens in a set, or you have a tendency to mix up green in a "blue and yellow makes green" kinda way! You need to be asking yourself "WHAT blue/WHAT yellow, and why, and what ELSE can I add to get the result I need?"   If you don't do this all ready, then it is time to pick up some books and LEARN what you are doing.  You might get there by trial and error....but it is much more gratifying to do a bit of learning, and increase your knowledge and understanding.  It puts you right there in the driving seat.  Doesn't mean you cannot take chances, and risks, and go down new roads sometimes, for unexpected results - of course you can - but without the basic foundation, you will just be relying on chance continuously.

  There are brilliant books out there.  And do LOOK at how other artists treat greens, and see how careful they are to reserve the somewhat "false", vivid greens, for small touches and highlights rather than for an overall look.  Here are a few for you to enjoy:

Richard McKinley, a true colour master:

we know those trees are green...but see how he has used SUCH subtle, grey-green colouring for the sunlit parts of them, and kept the more brilliant greens for the rows of plants in the foreground, just touches here and there, really.

how  beautiful are his greens.  See how those tiny touches of turquoise SING against the warmer, olive greens?    And look how much pink there is in the foreground, yet we know it is grasses.  Such a simple subject, such a masterful, surprising, adventurous result, in fact.



I watched Albert Handell doing this tree demo.  He began with watercolour, and worked pastels over the top.  He used lots of blues and greys and purples for the underpainting.  He touched in the greens towards the end of the demo. Just think how it might have looked, if he had sloshed on loads of bright green right from the get go....

Learning about colour, and how it works, is really rather exciting.  I encourage you to send some time reading about it, rather than just looking and doing and HOPING to get the hang of it.   (sorry Mr Genn)!