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| Greens from Gamblin Artists Colors |
Every plein air painter knows the dangers of Green in the Landscape: It's ubiquitous, often choking the landscape like a bad case of kudzu. On the palette, Green is sometimes too garish in our mixtures, and we have a tendency either to render it as a single, monotonous Green or, equally risky, as a confusing profusion of too-subtle variations. I capitalize "Green" like a pronoun here, because it is a person to be reckoned with.
HISTORY
In ancient times, very few greens were available to the painter—and most had problems. They were either dull, toxic or unstable. Terra Verte, an earth pigment mined in Italy, Poland and Bohemia, was dull. Verdigris, a brilliant green that forms the patina on copper, brass and bronze, wasn't just toxic but also expensive. (Botticelli, because he was working for the Pope, could afford it.) Sap Green, made from ripe buckthorn berries, faded quickly. There were so many problems with the available greens that many Renaissance painters preferred making green by glazing yellow over blue.
Malachite was the only bright, stable and lightfast green until the creation of mineral pigments like Emerald Green (1808), which was toxic, and its far-safer cousin, Viridian (1838). In the 20th century, rich, organic (carbon-based) colors such as Phthalo Green (1938) were invented. Today, many of the earlier, unsatisfactory greens have been recreated in non-toxic and stable versions as "hues" or mixtures of other pigments. Gamblin's Sap Green, for example, is a mixture of diarylide yellow (PY83 or HR70) and copper phthalocyanine (PY 83, PB 15:1). (Want to know more about the odd numbers? Go here.)
USAGE
To help avoid the monotonous appearance of greens that can result from using tubed green, many landscape artists recommend mixing our own from blue and yellow. This way, especially if marbleized rather than thoroughly mixed, the mixtures will have more interest and variety. For example, you can make beautiful warm greens with Prussian Blue and Yellow Ochre or cool greens with Hansa Yellow Light and Cobalt Blue. Violets and yellows make nice greens, too, and so does substituting Ivory Black for blue. It's worthwhile making some color charts to familiarize yourself with the universe of greens.
Tubed greens do have their place, most often as convenience colors when time is short or if you need a particular green that is impossible to mix. Sap Green—these days a "hue" rather than the genuine article—I use as a convenience color for painting seaweed or juniper trees. Sure, I could mix it, but here it is, in my paint box. (By the way, I usually modify this and most of my other greens with a little red.) On other hand, Permanent Green Light is impossible to mix, and it is perfect, right out of the tube, for representing the first tiny leaves of spring.
I'm including below an image of swatches I've made of colors from Gamblin. You can learn more about their line of colors here. They also have a series of informative articles about the color experience here.
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| Masstone, Undertone and Tint Top (L-R): Cobalt Green, Viridian, Phthalo Green, Phthalo Emerald, Emerald Green Bottom (L-r): Chromium Oxide Green, Permanent Green Light, Cadmium Green, Sap Green, Terre Verte |
Here are color swatches from Gamblin's website, showing some of the colors as tints, tones and shades. Also, if the color is transparent, there is a glaze. Tint is made with Titanium Zinc White + the color, tone is made from Portland Grey Medium + the color, and shade is made from Chromatic Black + color. The glaze swatch is made with Galkyd medium.
