A Private Entrance

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Here is another little painting I've just completed in square format. This scene is of the grounds around the Hotel Baudy in Giverny. The now historic Hotel Baudy catered to many American Impressionist painters, who made their pilgrimages to the village of Giverny to follow in the footsteps of Claude Monet. The grounds around the hotel are splendid. Huge rose bushes line every walkway at every turn. Click on the image for more information:

A Private Entrance Oil on canvas, 12"x12"

painting of giverny france

To see more of my paintings of Giverny, click here.

Tags: art painting landscape painting artist French landscape paintings

Mixing Greens

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I live in Virginia, and one of the most beautiful things about this area in the milder months is the vast arrays of greens.  As a landscape painter this is also one of the most challenging aspects about painting in this area! Virginia landscape paintingIn my opinion it is a good idea to try and mix your own greens as much as possible. It is easy to spot a painting that uses a lot of out-of-the-tube greens. It's not that tube greens are bad (and I definitely carry at least one when I paint en plein air because of the need for speed.) But painters can become over-reliant on them to the point where the same green is used for everything (trees, grass, shrubs, etc.) and the painting lacks nuance or variation.

The possibilities for mixing greens are seemingly endless. Here are some of the combinations (for oil painting) that I use often:

  • Warm blue (like pthalo)+ cool yellow (lemon) gives you a strong, kelly green
  • Cool blue (ultramarine) + warm yellow (cad. yellow) yields a duller, muted green
  • Cobalt blue is a true blue, and will yield a little cleaner green than ultramarine because ultramarine blue has red in it.
  • Experiment mixing warms and cools and you'll get greens that fall in the middle of these two extremes!
  • A good replacement for Sap Green: try mixing Prussian Blue or Pthalo Blue with Indian yellow. This will give you a similar dark, transparent green.
  • Lightening your greens can get a little tricky. Add too much white and your greens appear chalky. White also cools your colors considerably. Add too much yellow and your greens get brighter and warmer, which may not be what you're going for. The key is balance and a lot of experimentation (a.k.a trial and error!)
  • For distant greens, like at the horizon line of a distant field, try mixing white with a touch of blue and orange, and blending that into your greens as the field recedes.
  • Alternately, you could gray your greens down ever so slightly with a touch of a complimentary color like Alizarin crimson plus white.

Mixing greens is definitely a practiced skill, so my best advice if you are a landscape painter is to practice! It helps to create your own color charts with all of the various combinations of greens that you can mix, labled with the paints used to achieve each mixture. Within this chart, also try and mix a value scale, to see what the green mixture would look like lighter or darker.

Here's an idea if you want even more of a challenge: Try limiting your palette to Permanent Alizarin, Ultramarine or Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Yellow Light, and Titanium White, and see if you can execute the whole painting with just those colors. When you've practiced this for a while, add Phtalo or Windsor green to your palette. This is what Kevin Macpherson suggests in his excellent book Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light and Color.

Do you have a favorite green color mixture for your landscape paintings? Share your ideas by leaving a comment!

Tags: art painting landscape painting artist Virginia landscape paintings plein air 

Check out my Squidoo Lens

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A few weeks ago I was e-chatting with plein air painter Jan Blencowe and she mentioned that she was becoming addicted to Squidoo lenses. Addicted to huh? Never heard of it. Then after that conversation I seemed to hear about these lenses every other day. Must be a sign!  What is a lens? According to Squidoo,

"A lens is one person's view on a topic that matters to her. It's an easy-to-build, single web page that can point to blogs, favorite links, RSS feeds, Flickr photos, Google maps, eBay auctions, CafePress designs, Amazon books or music, and thousands of products from hundreds of other trusted merchants. You can pick whatever content you want to put in your lens to bring context to your topic. Then, when someone is looking for recommended information, fast, your lens gets him started and sends him off in the right direction. It's a place to start, not finish."

So I decided to investigate further and play. My first Squidoo lens about landscape painting is now online.  I am still thinking about more things I can include in the lens, but it is essentially up and running. Check out my Squidoo Lense here! 

Tags: art painting landscape painting artist plein air  

New shows on the horizon

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Fall is a busy time for many, and I'm no exception. I'm gearing up for a few shows: October 17, 2006, 6-7 p.m. Provence painting by Jennifer YoungCan Can Brasserie in Richmond, Virginia celebrates Art in our Community. One evening only. I will provide the art, and Can-Can will provide the wine tasting and munchies. The restaurant is located in the heart of Carytown in Richmond, VA, at 3120 W. Cary Street, Richmond, VA.

October 20, 2006 Tuscany painting by Jennifer YoungPlease join us for an art opening on Friday October 20th from 6 to 9 p.m. I will be one of six artists featured in the First Annual Landscape Exhibit at the Rentz Gallery. The gallery is located at 1700 W. Main St in Richmond, VA.  Show continues through November 27th. Contact the gallery at 804.358.5338 for more information.

December 1-2, 2006 My annual open studio event! Lots of fun stuff in the works....Details to follow soon.

landscape painting artist Provence paintings Tuscany paintings