'Pure' Greens
‘Pure’Greens
I have a couple of questions here from Karen and Pat about Greens. Painters and paint manufacturers have been trying for centuries to put together a natural looking, pure pigment green paint color, and with limited success. Read on…
Q: I have a question that has to do with the permanency or non-permanency of Chromium Oxide Green (is Terre Verte the same thing?) It's the only pigment on my palette about which I am uncertain.
A: Professional grade chromium oxide green is rated as very permanent. It is a stable color in all types of paints. Terre Verte or “Green Earth” is not the same pigment, but that needs to be qualified. Terre Verte is a natural clay colored by iron and manganese and was a very popular color during the Renaissance. It has low tinting strength and is transparent and has limited use in oils, except for glazes. Nowadays, it is rarely used to make colors as the best clays are hard to come by and expensive. When it is used for oils it is often strengthened with oxide of chromium, hence the confusion.
Q: I really love the Sap Green that you use. You said it was Windsor & Newton. I am assuming that it's from the Finity series, which I noted on the internet. It is the only one I can find in Windsor & Newton. The only greens I have are Chromium Oxide and Pthalo Green and I don't really like either one of them for the piece I am doing right now. I realize that I can mix the paint to get sort of the right color, but your advice is to keep the colors pure. Can you please let me know if it is Finity or not?
A: Yes it is. And it is one of the only colors in my palette that is not a pure pigment color. It is two pigments co-precipitated to make a single hue – as close as you can get to a pure pigment color as far as I can tell. To my knowledge, Winsor & Newton is the only company that makes this color. It is an excellent, natural looking, transparent color – great for landscape painting. Chromium Oxide and Pthalo Green have limited use in for landscape painters. Still, I most often prefer to make my greens by using combinations of blues, pure greens, blacks, yellows, browns, and oranges, glazed over one another in various combinations to make an exciting array of greens in my landscape pieces. This way the colors have all the depth and intrigue but still remain separate, pure. Try it out. Mix a blue and a yellow to make a green. Then, take the same blue and paint it on thinly over the white canvas, so it is transparent. Then, mix your yellow with some glazing medium and paint it over the dried (this is vital) blue. The resulting green will be far more interesting and lively than the mixture.