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Monday, 9 May 2011

How to mix natural greens for landscape painting #1


How to mix greens for landscape painting is a perennial topic and right now it's very topical in the northern hemisphere given the fact the trees are now all in leaf and it's warm enough for plein air painting to start!

I'm going to be exploring the topic of mixing greens over the course of a few posts.

I'm starting with a great video by Jan Blencowe (The Poetic Landscape) on YouTube which very graphically illustrates how you can mix greens for landscapes by mixing black and yellow.

Jan recommends using Mars Black as it's non-toxic.  She also uses transparent yellow, yellow ochre and ultramarine to demonstrate the range of greens which can be produced.

Tony Johansen identifies Mars Black characteristics as being:
  • only black available in acrylic ranges
  • only major black pigment that is 
    • non-toxic, 
    • a good drier, 
    • safe to over paint 
    • can be used in all media without reservation. 
  • It is dense and opaque with a warmish brown undertone


One thing - the video was uploaded over two years ago and the reference to website http://www.thepaintingadayproject.com/ is redundant as that site no longer exists. You can find Jan on the two links in the first sentence of this post.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks Katherine, that's one of the best colour mixing demos I've ever seen.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Greens can become a real problem for the painter. I look forward to the coming posts to learn more about mixing natural greens.

    ReplyDelete

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