Between Blue and Yellow

Because of the holiday I decided to talk about painting the color green. If you enjoy painting landscapes, understanding as much as you can about the color green is essential. Because green is a mixture of blue and yellow, you can mix a cool green by adding more blue and you can mix a warm green by adding more yellow. In this painting, the distant trees are cool, because I added more blue, which causes them to recede into the distance. The lawn is a warm yellow green and the shadows on the lawn are a darker and cooler green. The speckled leaves against the sky are in the middle ground and I warmed them up by adding more yellow. The evergreen tree on the right is a deep dark and I used one of my favorite colors perylene green. It is a beautiful rich dark green and when you add a little more water it turns into an interesting smokey green. There are different greens in the water and I softened them by adding a little more water to the green mixtures. The greens I have on my palette are olive green, perylene green and terra verde. With these plus my different yellows and blues I can mix an infinite number of greens. Learning to mix as many different greens as you can will really improve your landscape paintings. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton