Acrylic Greens

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Permalink Reply by Dorothy Wilson on January 26, 2012 at 5:51pm

Hi Susan.

There are various mixes you can make using one shade of blue and various shades of yellow to get different greens and if you want a dark sage green, you can mix black and yellow. Sometimes you need to put a little bit of red in your green mix as well if it is very bright. Not a colour I use a lot of because I don't do landscapes a lot but perhaps somebody who does, will come along soon and tell you what's best.

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Permalink Reply by Susan North on January 27, 2012 at 8:36am

Thanks for replying. I don't seem to get on with landscapes I find them difficult especially with regard to greens and even trees. The only landscape I feel happy with was a snowy one. I think I will try to mix greens and keep a note of what I did mix by my easel. Maybe this will help me.
 
Dorothy Wilson said:

Hi Susan.

There are various mixes you can make using one shade of blue and various shades of yellow to get different greens and if you want a dark sage green, you can mix black and yellow. Sometimes you need to put a little bit of red in your green mix as well if it is very bright. Not a colour I use a lot of because I don't do landscapes a lot but perhaps somebody who does, will come along soon and tell you what's best.

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Permalink Reply by Dorothy Wilson on January 27, 2012 at 12:20pm

Yes. It's a good idea to make yourself a little chart in your notebook. You will see a big range of greens if you use one shade of blue at a time with one shade of yellow. For example, ultramarine blue with cadmium yellow at different amounts of each colour to give you tones. Or even a straight green, mixed with lemon or yellow gives you different ones again. There are loads of combinations and it depends what colours you own too. I always think that it depends on the colours you have overall in your painting as to which shade you use. Good luck with it!.

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Permalink Reply by Susan on January 27, 2012 at 11:23pm

Susan - log the following into Google. How to Mix Greens Using Oil Paints by Tony Paul. This is an article on mixing oil colours but works well with any media allowing for differences in colour descriptions. Full details are given together with charts of the colours mixed. It is well worth a look. When I find these instruction articles I copy and paste into Word and then print and keep a copy in a folder for future use.  I hope this helps.

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Permalink Reply by Virginia Spencer on February 1, 2012 at 5:23pm

I like the addition of red as mentioned by Dorothey, Sometimes I mix orange in them as well. It tones down the acidity of greens and gives them a much more natural look. Don't forget too that landscapes, especially in the distance often have shades of purples and such as well. So using just greens for foliage often leads to an unnatural tone.

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