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.
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| 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.
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:
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| 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!
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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:
