How to Paint Green Grass with Watercolor


Recently one of my readers requested I write a blog about how green grass is painted with watercolors.

I am glad people are reading all around the world, and I'm happy to share a little about this specific subject matter! Thank you to the woman who requested this instruction.

Two old computers have died on me since 2016, but on an old flash drive I found a series of painting photographs to use for a “how to paint green grass” online demo and lesson.

Farmhouse in Summer, 16x20 (framed size), watercolor painting by Elise, September 2016, Private Collection.

This was a commissioned piece I painted in September 2016. I like it a lot. It is perhaps one of the most beautiful summertime scenes I've ever been asked to paint.

The variety of greens and the depth created by the trees and tree shadows made for a lovely composition.

I call it Farmhouse in Summer because, of course, that is what it is. But it probably would be best to call it something more enchanting like, An Ethereal and Verdant Summer Afternoon...! =)

It was a wonderful location on the coast of Maine to visit. You can just drift away there, in the peaceful summer breeze and buzz of the insects.

I'm told a Viking coin was once found on this piece of land, which overlooks the ocean.

Choosing Your Pigments

Now, for painting green, I've said before how when I returned to painting when I was twenty-two, I felt I needed a smaller less complicated color palette.

So, I eliminated all of my green pigments at this time, forcing myself to mix green, using yellow and blue.

I had noticed that Hooker's Green Dark and Viridian Green were both staining pigments, which means they cannot be lifted once applied to paper. Sap Green was also eliminated. I can't remember if it's a staining color or not.

That left me with cool and warm yellows, to mix with cool and warm blues.

I learned by doing a color chart, which mixed all my colors, one at a time, with every other color - separately, that Aureolin mixed with Antwerp Blue made really nice, bright greens.

If I added either Burnt Sienna or Brown Madder, I could get a darker shade of green, depending on the percentages of the colors I mixed.

You will see here my basic palette, which contains twelve pigments:


Four yellows, three reds, three blues, and two browns. All are non-toxic, except Aureolin (which is my favorite yellow hue).

I still use Windsor & Newton professional grade pigment, with a few exceptions. Opera (Bright Pink) is a Holbein color.

There are twelve keys in an octave on the piano, too – seven white keys and five accidentals (black keys) – but because I eliminated the secondary colors of green, and purple they don't quite match up to the musical scale.

The Color Green

Green is known as the color which denotes “flourishing”. It's the key of “F” on a musical scale. 

It is also the color given to the Heart Chakra, which has a very powerful electrical toros. It has been measured electrically as much as fifty feet outside the human body. 

Eating green foods helps the health of the heart.

Green is the color of balance. This is one reason why seeing the green trees budding in Spring after a long grey winter is so satisfying to the body, mind and spirit!

Painting green grass is very similar to painting green trees, but grass has a different shape than a leaf. It's helpful to go outside and study different kinds of grass, how the blade is shaped, and how it falls.

My family used to hay every summer, to feed our ponies through the winters. “Timothy” is a type of grass with a beautiful shape to it.

I feel like I know a lot about lawn grasses, because I mowed the lawns surrounding our home and garden for many years. The ponies were good at keeping the lawn grass down, too, until they all died. Horses are pretty good mowers of lawns when they get out of the pasture. 

I used to think about getting a sheep to mow our fields. Dragging a lawn mower behind you gets old, and we never had a ride-on machine. But it made me very strong.


Begin the Painting with a Good Foundation - Prepare

I began this painting with a detailed drawing, knowing I would need to carefully preserve the paper where the gray house sat.

Then I chose seven colors. For this painting I used Aureolin, Raw Sienna, Opera (a bright pink), Antwerp Blue, French Ultramarine Blue, Brown Madder and Cerulean Blue.

Then I wet the paper and began by putting in a light wash for the background, or foundation of the lawn.

Painting in watercolor is a lot like building a house, or a family. It takes a lot of preparation, planning, and when you are a beginner at watercolor realism, it's slow going.

It really helps to go along carefully at the beginning, to get it right. So, in painting grass, you have to remember to look for and paint the light as it falls on the ground. Usually there will be some movement to the lawn, and so the value and shade of the grass will change. In places it will be a bluer green, or yellower, or browner, or more olive/grayed. 

You gray greens by adding either red or brown - the complimentary color which is opposite to green on the color wheel.  If you mix your greens using a couple different pigments of blue, it helps keep the eye moving.

I've noticed since doing some painting with acrylic on canvas that painting in watercolor is not just harder to control, it takes a LOT longer to get the right shade or value! You have to patiently and gently build up multiple layers of thin paint, if you strive for realism.

Slow and steady wins the race.

Take Your Time for Best Results

This piece was 10x14 but it took me, if I remember correctly, about two – three weeks to complete! I worked a few hours each day, until I was tired and lost my focus. It's best to stop when tired, and begin again another day.

So, I kept working on different areas, going from light to dark, and you can see by the painting progression how I moved around the painting, working on the tree foliage, the tree trunks, the buildings and the grass.

After putting down several layers of “foundation”, using my damp brush to “wipe in” and soften hard edges so the grass would flow better, I then began to use a small brush to indicate individual blades of grass.

When you paint animal fur, you want to stroke with your pencil or brush in the same direction as the hair lies.

This applies to grass, too. Grass grow from the ground up, so stroke with your brush tip in that direction! Lift the brush slightly as you arrive at the top of the blade, to give a slender tip  to each blade.

You will want to experiment with different sized riggers, flat and round brushes ahead of time, to see what works best for the type of grass you are depicting:


You can soften different areas of the grass blades with a damp brush. Sometimes I soften underneath, or on top, or on the sides of the blades of grass, or group of blades.

Other times I wipe them out or blot them if I don't like what I did, let the paper dry, then try again.

If there is yellow-green ground, using another shade of green for grass on top of this is helpful, so the grass blades can be seen.

Using several different sizes and types of brush can be visually helpful, too. I have about six brushes I rely on, but sometimes only use three or four in a painting.

The moss on the large tree in the left foreground was fun to paint.
This painting taught me a lot about glazing, and I just kept deepening and varying the values and shades of green.

Variety

Nature is full of variety, and variety is said to be the “spice of life”. Almost everything tastes better when there is both crunch and smooth textures. This applies to almost any art form.

Music is nicer to hear when there are many shades of color – different instrumentation, with various tonal qualities and volume.

Paintings need hard and soft lines, varied color hues, contrasting colors and value shades, different sized shapes, with some but not too much repetition.

Paintings need light areas saved, as well as dark, shadowed areas added.

It helps to start with a great subject, and I am so grateful to have been at this property at this specific time of day and year to get a great reference photo.

I'm thankful to my Aunt Helen, who is no longer with us, because she made this painting possible by inviting me to Maine, then taking me to see and photograph this Farmhouse, after I was commissioned to paint it.

Here is a painting "play-by-play" 

of how I began, continued and completed this piece:















Farmhouse in Summer by Elise. Soli Deo Gloria!



This was the beginning of the grass "foundation" wash:



This is about half-way through:



This was at the finish, after many light glazes 

to strengthen the grass in the foreground:



Have a Beautiful Goal

Like life, you don't know when you start a painting how it's going to end.

I find it helpful to have a goal in mind before I begin a painting. Especially when it's a commissioned piece, I want my clients to be very, very happy. My promise is “satisfaction guaranteed”.

I imagine the way the finished painting will look. I want the viewer to feel what I felt, being there to take the photos.

Then I strive internally, from my heart, to create beauty. And not just beauty but great beauty. There is passion in it, and this can be tiring - pouring out emotional energy.

As I've gained more mastery of mixing colors, and fixing things, painting has gotten easier and I don't stress out over mistakes as much as I used to.

A desire for beauty is mixed into the hundreds of color changes, brush strokes and small decisions in each painting.

My mom always said that if you shoot for the top of the lamp post you might make it half-way up, but if you shoot for the moon, you might make the top of the lamp post!

God's holiness is beautiful and all He has made reflects that great beauty, all the way down to the intricate details!

_____________________


I hope this helps you in your painting journey, as you study, experiment and learn to paint green grass and green trees!

Your painting-friend, with love,

Elise

The grass withers and the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. ~ Isaiah 40:8


This poem and reading, below, taken from the devotional Streams in the Desert" came to mind as I thought how this painting came to be. 

Especially the line from the fourth verse, "The tangled skein shall shine at last".

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do:

“The Lord is my shepherd.”


Not was, not may be, nor will be. “The Lord is my shepherd,” is on Sunday, is on Monday, and is through every day of the week; is in January, is in December, and every month of the year; is at home, and is in China; is in peace, and, is in war; in abundance, and in penury. —J. Hudson Taylor


HE will silently plan for thee,
Object thou of omniscient care;
God Himself undertakes to be
Thy Pilot through each subtle snare.


He WILL silently plan for thee,
So certainly, He cannot fail!
Rest on the faithfulness of God,
In Him thou surely shalt prevail.


He will SILENTLY plan for thee
Some wonderful surprise of love.
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
But it is kept for thee above.


He will silently PLAN for thee,
His purposes shall all unfold;
The tangled skein shall shine at last,
A masterpiece of skill untold.


He will silently plan FOR THEE,
Happy child of a Father’s care,
As though no other claimed His love,
But thou alone to Him wert dear.


~ E. Mary Grimes


Whatever our faith says God is, He will be.






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