Landscape painting and the use of GREEN

I was talking to an artist friend at a recent art event, and I happened to get onto the subject of greens and landscape painting. "I discourage my students from putting any tube green on their palette in my classes," I said. "Otherwise, they'd paint the entire landscape with tube green."

At this point, another friend came up and asked her where her painting was. She said, "It's the one over there, the landscape painted all in tube green."

Fortunately, she has a good sense of humor and didn't seem upset at my untimely remark. But it set me to thinking about green.

I have posted on my "Free Art Lesson" pages a new lesson (Lesson #40) on the use of green in landscapes. Take a look at it for some examples on mixing greens.

In "Cloudy Day, Riverbend" (above), which is on display at the Art League gallery Alexandria during July 2008, notice that I used a varity of greens to create an illusion of depth. This is a small "plein air" (on site) painting done with a limited palette. All the greens were mixed — with no actual green paint on the palette.