Welcome to my little collection of green colors. Green is hard to get it ‘right’ because the fresh paint from the tube always feel artificial. Green is often used to paint nature, especially trees. Trees, bushes, plants are not solid objects, they don’t have distinguished planes that we know for sure light is hitting on. They are made of thousands of leaves, each reflecting light in a different direction.
If nature is just a factor in the painting, I can rely on the texture of the paper to do the trick and just put a few layers for wide range of green tones.
Sometimes I try painting green in weird combinations. In this painting below, I try a combination of burnt sienna, green and purple – it turned out not good, but it was a fun experiment.
In this painting below, I actually use yellow and white more than green. Titanium white mixed yellow can create a cooler yellow suitable for the background.
In this sketch below, I use a few green paint (permanent green, leaf green) mixing with yellow, red, blue or brown sienna to create a wide range of tones so that I can imply that there are multiple types of plants.
This is a fun experiment with green lighting over different objects. The green Russian doll and the white paint package have the most range of colors since they are made of reflective material. In contrast, the flower and banana tend to lose their saturation and doesn’t reflect as much.
In the painting below, I added ultramarine blue when I mixed the dark tones for the trees, so that the oranges can stand out more. I also add horizon blue to the background trees to differentiate the main one.
This one is to play with the green in the shadow and in highlight. The yellow house and the red roof made the process simpler with just three main basic color: yellow, blue, red.
Here are a few pieces painting digitally. Apart from the highlight created by sunlight, other parts of the fruits have some blue since they are in the middle of branches and leaves.
I try to think of the trees as made of multiple balls and add scattered highlights to show the texture of the tree.
As we wrap up this collection of green-themed paintings, I hope you’ve enjoyed exploring the shades of green with me. There’s still room to explore with green in particular and expressing nature for me, see you again in another collection in the future!
Jeanne Lolness 