Tuesday, March 17, 2020

What about Greens?

A blog reader asked: "Do you carry any greens with you and if so, what’s a decent green for landscape? I’ve been trying out sap green and Hooker green which I believe is a mixture of Prussian blue and gamboge. Or would you recommend mixing greens on the spot as a better general practice and to learn the extents of a limited palette?"

Foreground detail of Peder Mork Mønsted

Yes! I encourage you to experiment. As you may have noticed I have been bringing some greens from time to time, especially sap green, viridian and permanent green light. The last one can give you that powerful "vegetable green" that you see when light transmits through a young leaf.

But there's also an argument from mixing your greens, which you can do with many blue-yellow combinations, such as ultramarine blue and gamboge.

To keep your green colors looking like they belong, remember to vary the colors according to the four conditions of light on foliage, and it often looks good to vary greens with their complements, such as reds. Monsted does that very well in the above detail

2 comments:

Virginia Fhinn said...

The Mixing O' the Greens

P said...

James,
This is off topic, but we could certainly use a "challange" right about now.....