How to Improve Your Summer Green Paintings

'Sweet Summer Meadows'         10x8        pastel       ©Karen Margulis
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Yesterday I went crazy with green. I wanted a very green forest scene. I wanted the viewer to be enveloped in greens. So I did an underpainting with the local color of green. It worked.  But usually I am looking for relief from too much green in a landscape. I am looking for ways to make the green more interesting and easier on the eye.

This painting demonstrates how I used another color UNDER the green to make it feel more natural and interesting. I wanted to infuse my meadow with warmth and sunlight so I chose a warm color for the underpainting. I also used clear gesso to add texture to the meadow.

close up detail of the texture

Here are the pastels that I used for this painting. I blocked in the big shapes of the underpainting with these pastels and created a value map. It was easy to follow my map to build up the layers of the meadow.

A range of values for the underpainting

click to enlarge and see the texture

It is interesting to compare the very green painting with this tempered green landscape! It is nice to know we have options in underpainting.

You can see a detailed step by step photo demo of this painting today on my Patreon page. It is $4 a month to join but now is a good time to check it out. Cancel at anytime! www.patreon.com/karenmargulis