Dig Deep for those Greens - Art Tips

NEW WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF ART BY WENDY

Yes, there will be Green again!!

Red greens, blue greens, soft gentle greens to sink into and those bright garish greens that stop you short!! After last week's crazy Demo Week (see here for more on that) I am ready to get back into the studio and paint.

My best friends, the chickadees, are back in the garden! They are the ones that really bring the life back to the yard.  They chitter, they chatter, they bath in the birdbath.  They flit and they flirt.  Best of all they bring their babies to feed. So cute watching the little ones crying for food, bathing in the bird bath, and sulking when they can’t get their way.  Other birds come and go, never staying long, but the chickadees are my real backyard buddies.  

So of course they need to be featured in my work!!

Sunshine and Sunflowers WIP - Watercolour

My plan: chickadees and sunflowers.  (Okay I admit it.  I am really into the summer more than spring.  But I am ready, aren't you?)

My picture Sunshine and Sunflowers,  is a work in progress now but already you can see the problem.  Green.  I love it: to look at on a summer day, to play on, to feel the softness as I settle down with a book.  But to paint!  It's a challenge.  Everything looks green, local colour is green, green everywhere.  But the whole picture can't be one be blog of green!!

My palette: Daniel Smith GreenGold (GG) , Ultramarine Blue (UB), Alizarin Crimson (AC), Aureolin,(A) Gamboge (G), Burnt Sienna(BS).   (The GreenGold has to be Daniel Smith’s as the other brands just don’t seem to work the same way.  This greengold is the colour of the moss on the branches shining in the sun.  It is that lovely blue green (when you add UB) that brings to mine the firs as you walk down a forest trail.  It just seems to be my kind of coastal green.)

The Challenge: build my greens just with this palette.  I know, easy to grab lots more tubes of paints with greens and browns, and golds, even reds.  But lots of tubes, introduces lots of new colours and suddenly things don’t blend any more.  Stay with your palette and dig deep, there are many subtle ways to suggest green with what you have.  Here is a sample of some of the greens I have created with mixing  UB, A, AC and G with the GreenGold.  The UB + GG I did two samples.  One with a little UB and one with lots.  Just dropping in a little AZ changes it again.  So many greens and green suggestions right here.  

Sample strip of some of the greens mixed with GG.
Note the changes with the purple glaze.(UB + AC)

Those greens were only created with weak and strong mixes.  What about all the colour variations when you start to glaze over them.  Glaze over with a blue, a yellow or a red.  More colours.  I included a glaze of purple (UB + AC) over the test strip once again, lots of different grayed down shades.  Of course another layer creates more. If you go back and look at Sunshine and Sunflowers WIP again, you can see how they blend together and read as green but really are quite different!!

Follow up from last week's post: The 3 presentations went well.  I met some wonderful people, made new friends, and got totally inspired. A really special thank you to Jackie who took the time to send me this comment Sunday night after a full day workshop yesterday on Marketing. 

"Hi, Wendy.  I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your Marketing Your Art Workshop.  I learned SO much!  It is the BEST workshop I have ever been to on ANY subject.  Thanks so much." 

It really made the whole day worth it for me to hear that.

Well back to work, hope to post the finish picture next week.  (Of course you know what the next challenge will be - working with yellow.  No easy task!!)

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Have a great artful day, Wendy

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