The Trouble with Green

     I just finished this commission for a couple that asked me to paint this photo they provided from some land that they own outside of San Jose, CA. I haven't been there, but I liked the picture and have recently shown it to them. Photos are a tricky thing...you have to use it as a departure point and always end up making modifications to the image. They like it, which is always a relief.
     Although it looks like there is a lot of green here, there isn't really. Like Kermit says, "Being Green isn't easy." Nor is mixing it. One of the biggest things that I find to be a problem with green in paintings is the overuse of Phthalo green or Viridian Greeen. yuk! No wonder the word Phthalo is so hard to pronounce! This green is an  unnatural, weird, too bright color and all too often I see it being used straight from the tube onto the canvas. This green doesn't really appear in nature and surely should only be used (if at all) with lots of modification and addition of other colors. I seldom use paints straight from the tube anyway, because the color that I want usually needs to be tweaked a bit, but Viridians and Phthalos are almost impossible for me to work with. I think that I have an ancient tube of it floating around that I often only look at as a reminder of what NOT to use. Often, my favorite greens come from Black and Cad Yellow Medium mixed together. There is a bit of transparency left when the two are mixed together, which I often want. I like Sap Greens and Olive Greens, but they too are very transparent, so I usually end up mixing my own. As much as I love green and trees and painting outdoors, I find that there are huge amounts of blue and purples in trees deep inside close to the trunks. There are mysterious areas that I love to try to get into when I am painting a landscape.
   So...as an aside...I am looking at turning 60 soon. I wrestle with this because most of the time, I sure don't feel like 60.  I have been thinking a lot about the past, the things I have learned, the people that I have loved that are gone, and so many of the mistakes I have made. I try hard not to regret. For me, it's not the things that I have done that I regret, but rather the things that I haven't done. More about this later, because I'm not 60 yet and I still have a little time left to ponder.