Mixing A Variety Of Greens In Two Steps - Jackson's Art Blog

Green is a colour that can easily overpower a painting and many painters find mixing greens a challenge. But landscape painters, in particular, need to use a lot of green. Many artists find that the solution is to ensure you use a wide variety of greens. The examples of mixing greens here are done with oil colour but the method applies equally to other mediums. This two-step method for colour mixing works to mix any colour, not just green.

Mixing Greens in Two Steps

Start with a Base Middle Green

One common way to mix greens is to start with a base middle green and modify it with two other colours to achieve a spectrum of greens. The base middle green can be a tube of a single pigment green, a tube of a premixed-for-convenience green or your favourite mixture of two paints to make an average middle green.

Middle Green made with 3 parts Jackson’s Artist Oil Lemon Yellow and 1 part Jackson’s Artist Oil Phthalo Blue.

More Base Middle Greens

Modify the Base Middle Green

Mixing a variety of greens from this base middle green then consists of adjustments to the three characteristics of this base colour:

• light/dark (add yellow to lighten or blue/violet to darken),
• warm/cool (add yellow/orange/red/brown to warm or blue or a bluer green like viridian to cool),
• saturated/subdued (add brighter green to brighten or contrasting red to dull).

Beginning with the base middle green paint, modify the hue and temperature with a yellow (to make a lighter, warmer, more yellow green) or blue (to make a darker, cooler, more bluish-green) paint.

Second, modify the saturation with any warming or neutralising colour from orange to violet (it usually takes a very small amount to start dulling or desaturating the colour). In the samples I used a smidge of crimson. To increase the saturation you can add a brighter green, like Permanent Green.

With this method you can mix a spectrum of green shades to provide the necessary variety: warm greens, cool greens, light greens, dark greens, bright greens, and dull grey greens.

A wide variety of warm, cool, light, dark, saturated and dull greens, all modified from a middle green.

All the paints used in the following colour mixing wheels are Jackson’s Artist Oils, except Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson which are Jackson’s Professional Oils.

Modifying a Middle Green – Phthalo Green

Centre: Middle Green – Phthalo Green, thick and also thinned with a solvent 1st ring: four warm colours and four cool colours 2nd ring: a mix of the middle green and the modifying colour Outer ring: the mixture dulled with a small amount of Alizarin Crimson

Modifying a Middle Green – Lemon Yellow and Phthalo Blue

Centre: Middle Green mixed from three parts Lemon Yellow and one part Phthalo Blue 1st ring: four warm colours and four cool colours 2nd ring: a mix of the middle green and the modifying colour Outer ring: the mixture dulled with a small amount of Alizarin Crimson

You can find products related to oil painting, such as brushes, mediums, surfaces, and paints, in our oil painting department.