Sunday, July 15, 2012

The Trouble with Green

In this little 5x7 inch oil painting, I was working on what I call "The Green Problem."  In the Pacific Northwest, we get a lot of rain.  It results in several delightful problems.  First, landscapes are often a cornucopia of green.  It is a big challenge as an artist to keep variety in my paintings with so much green.  Second, how do I mix endless greens from just a few colors?  This painting was inspired by morning sunshine on the grass along the Dechutes River in Central Oregon.  The grass was a brilliant speckling of green, thus a great subject for tackling "The Green Problem."  I used two blues and four yellows plus white to create the sun dappled grass and attempt to capture the brilliance of the scene.  I'm happy with the results of this little sketch.  The next challenge will be to find a composition that will work when scaled up. I'm not sure that this one will work.  New dilemma for another day. There are many summer landscape paintings for sale at Fine Art America.


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4 comments:

Dani Duck said...

I love your paintings. You put so much work into these, and it shows. It's not easy to do this many paintings in such a short period of time!

I've mentioned you on my blog as one of my favourite sites. I've also given you a couple of awards. You can collect them on my blog here: http://daniduckart.blogspot.ca
Pass on the goodwill to seven other bloggers and tell seven things about yourself on your blog. It was lots of fun for me, and I hope it will be for you, too!

Nancy Merkle Fine Art said...

Thanks, Dani--I will stop by your blog and have a visit.

Kathleen Pequignot said...

We have the same type of green dilemma here in Florida. Sometimes, the hue is just overwhelming and it takes some creativity to interpret the green in an interesting way. :)

Nancy Merkle Fine Art said...

Yes--creativity is the key--best of luck with your Florida green. : )