Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Green

Fish World 2 (sans fish)
Fish World 3 (sans fish)





































The color green is proving a challenge this year. In the past I have been uninterested in it, and largely ignored it in favor of yellows, reds, blues (which are stiill my favorites.)  But this year it wants to break out, it seems, or rather . . . break me down. It is always too blue, or too yellow, or too brown, or too bright.  I spent weeks on the green in "Fish World (Glory)" that I have on exhibit at the Edison Eye, painting over it again and again.    (Tim says the human eye can perceive more variations of green than any other color.  Damn!) 

I try mixing from scratch, using ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, yellow ochre, Hansa yellow (medium and light), cadmium yellow medium, transparent yellow oxide . . .or I try toning standard shades of green: green gold, emerald green, phthalo green (yellow and blue), Hooker's green,Jenkin's green, permanent green (dark and light), veridian, chromium oxide, even -- if I get desperate -- teal, turquoises, cobalts.

But nothing works.

I turn the studio lights on, turn them off, place a light directly over the painting, and even take the painting outside into natural spring light. 

Nothing works.

I glaze with yellow and red oxide . . .

Variations of green now comprise over half of my total inventory of paint.  And I still don't like the color.



2 comments:

Uli Day said...

Greens have been a thorn in my side for quilting as well, getting the right ones to complement each other have sometimes taken years of looking, one explanation may be On a bell curve of colors distinguished by the human eye, greens are right in the middle. This is an adaptation based on humans interacting in the natural world, where green are predominant. Greens are perceived more readily than any other color because of the combined color perception of rods and cones

dbrute said...

Yes. Wikipedia says:

" the just-noticeable difference in wavelength varies from about 1 nm in the blue-green and yellow wavelengths, to 10 nm and more in the longer red and shorter blue wavelengths."