Julie Douglas, Notes from The Atelier: Forty Shades of Green

Sunday, 25 September 2011

Forty Shades of Green

Continuing my Woody theme obliges me to tackle some Colour myths, once again. And this time it's my favourite, Green.

It's not that green is my favourite colour, for it isn't. But I love the variety of greens. On my frequent walks in the woods I am always, always surprised and overwhelmed by the number of greens on display, which of course alters and multiplies with sunlight, the time of day and the time of year. From leafy arbours to the open fields at the side, the different array of greens is infinite. As I said in my post, Seeing Red, one word for a range of colours is ridiculously mean, representing a lowest common denominator word to over generalise a complex area. The naming of a colour (or Hue - I think the word Hue is better than the word Colour as it is less commonly used) influences how much (or rather, how LITTLE) we actually observe. Being lazy in language encourages us to be lazy in Seeing. Which impacts on our painting.
Here are a few greens for you to visualise - Moss-Green, Grass-Green (long wavy grass-green, then short newly-cut spring grass-green), Savoy Cabbage-Green, Spring Cabbage-Green, lime green.. I won't even START on leaves, apart from the obvious extremes of Silver Birch leaves and holly.

See what I mean? But considering our limitation of language, sometimes looking directly at the woods may restrict what we See. Look at the photos above - both LOADED with different greens. But I decided to shake the camera so everything became merged, and wow, a rather different array (albeit compromised) of greens, and Seeing, appears. I've put them on here sideways to help you to see not Trees, but GREENS. Please double-click on them to get the full benefit of this amazing palette... Delicious....