There were several reasons that prompted me to start this sketchbook in green. When Gail Harker was here, she suggested that I should do more studies in green and then see if the greens that I saw in nature were what I had produced on paper. Also, this year for our challenges we are working on color so I thought that fit in well. And lastly, I have always loved green. So how many different greens are there?
I started with Procion dyes in three yellows, two blues and black. I decided to do a variety of values from light to dark in each color. I had a 60 page sketchbook (4″ x 6″) and found that I ran out of pages before I ran out of shades of green.
Some of the greens are very yellow-green and some are much closer to blue-green.
I didn’t do solid colors but generally ended up mixing two or more greens together on a page. And I didn’t keep track of what dye I used on what page. I just decided to play with green.
Since I was trying to replicate natural colors, I neutralized most of the greens.
Then I started collecting a variety of leaves on my walks in the mornings.
I matched the natural leaf with the painted pages. This is pine moss and is really bright ‘acid’ green when you see it on the trees.
One of the problems that I am having is that the ‘live’ leaf color is not the same as the preserved leaf color. I used matte medium to preserve the leaves but they all seem to really dull down and turn brown. So they don’t match the page when they are completely dried.
So I have decided to try a different preserving method using glycerine. I haven’t tried it before but I’ll see if that preserves the natural color a little better. I also think that I will do some green thread studies and dyed fiber studies to put on some of the pages.
Now that I have started making a green sketchbook I think it would be great fun to do one in all the primary and secondary colors. What’s your favorite color?