Painting the Greens of Summer

'Summer Greens'        8x10        oil on panel   ©Karen Margulis

I often say that I live in the Land of Green here in the Southeast.  It is beautiful but it can be a challenge to paint. With pastels I have it figured out.  After 7 years of collecting pastels (yes it can be an addiction) I have quite an assortment of greens.  The trick is knowing which greens to use.  Not only that it helps to know ways to make all of the green interesting. With pastels I do this by underpainting in complementary colors.

I challenged myself with this oil painting. I painted it from a recent pastel painting. I thought it would be a good exercise to see how many greens I can mix with my limited oil palette.  I also did an underpainting in oranges, reds and purples using thin oils.

Here is the pastel version of the same scene. This was done on Canson Moonstone paper.