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Hi class and welcome to the great green shootout. Here we can see how to really get a nice green
and the ones that can cause trouble in your painting very easily.
To start with I’m going to use burnt umber and yellow. What, no blue? no you don’t
need to start with blue it can really make terrible greens that can ruin your paintings
quicker than you think. Okay here we go with the burnt umber.
So here with the burnt umber you can see you can get these very subtle greens, okay they’re
not green greens but when your painting the landscape if you look at the side of a tree
this will be perfect for highlights on foliage so this is really really handy when you are
first blocking in so that the bright green doesn’t put your eye out when you are trying
to judge tones and colours.
The next one which I often use is black. This is a carbon black, still with the cadmium
yellow light. And you’ll see how that effects it. Black has got a blue undertone so it is
like using a very very muted blue to get a green. You only need a small amount of black
to make a big difference to your yellow. This has got a lot higher tinting strength than
the yellow. Especially if this was a transparent yellow like Hansa Yellow or Lemon Yellow.
So here you can see with the ultramarine blue it goes,well obviously, alot bluer you’ve
got a lot bluer green here but this black and the yellow makes a very nice green in-between
these two. if you don’t want to go as subtle as the
brown black can often be a very good choice
Again with the Phthalo blue be very careful, you only need a small amount to change it.
so here you can see when we look at the mass tones of the colours and how dark they are
the phthalo blue green looks very dark, darker than the ultramarine blue. but mixed with
the yellow it suddenly gets a lot more vivid what I would call an acid green coming especially
on this one here.
so as far as the shootout goes my money is on the black and the yellow, this is the one
I’d probably use most to create a nice balance and a tonal painting. I might use a bit of
the ultramarine blue just for an odd punch but more than likely I’d use a glaze to
warm up the colour rather than using a pure opaque finish. If you’d like to learn more
about color mixing and how to get the perfect landscapes have a look at my website at will
kemp art school dot com. which ones your favorite? let me know in the
comments below.