What if green was an essential primary color, as necessary for mixing as blue or yellow?
Limited palettes tend often to skip green pigments forcing painters to mix every green from the same blue and yellow.
Even the Impressionists saw the value of a green as essential to their limited plein-air palettes, in the 19th century, choosing the newly introduced Viridian that could easily be warmed but also function as a blue.
Viridian mixed with a pure Zinc White such as the Impressionists would have used, enhancing Viridian’s airy coolness.
Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, by Claude Monet, 1877, oil on canvas, 23¾ x 31½ inches, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
The Green Dress, by William McGregor Paxton, 1914, 36 x 28 inches, private collection
What Viridian brought to the palette was a sparkling clear brightness distinct yet natural. Transparent and cool in tone, Viridian could add dimension and a sense of air to dark neutrals like umbers and blacks.
Burnt Umber enhanced with the more transparent Viridian and then tinted with Titanium-Zinc White
Lumberjack in the forest, by Max Liebermann, 1898, oil on panel, 25 x 19¼ inches, private collection
Ivory Black enhanced with a small amount of Viridian
Jeanne Samary in a Low Necked Dress, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1877, oil on canvas, 18⅛ x 22 inches, Pushkin Museum, Moscow
Prussian Blue enhanced with a small amount of Viridian
Woman in a Green Hat (Madame Cézanne), by Paul Cézanne, 1894-1895, oil on canvas, 39½ x 32 inches, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
Immortality, by Max Ernst, 1913, oil on canvas
In the next century, Phthalo Green became the standard bright green with a robust saturation of color that can be a challenge to control. Here is a green choice for a palette that commands our attention.
Phthalo Green shown tinted with our strong and opaque Titanium White
Our Phthalo Green is a cool transparent color that can easily be warmed, function like a blue and can also be used to enhance other cool darks. Phthalo Green as an essential primary? I’ll take it!
Burnt Umber enhanced with Phthalo Green and then tinted with Titanium-Zinc White
Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne and George Dyer, by Francis Bacon, 1967, oil on canvas, 14 x 12 inches, private collection
Mars Black enhanced with just Phthalo Green and then mixed with it and Titanium White
Study for Head of George Dyer, by Francis Bacon, 1967, oil
Visit our website for more about Viridian or Phthalo Green.
Thank you for the instruction. Great colors.
Hello Weldon,
You are welcome!
Thanks so much for your feedback, we appreciate it.
-Gail
Love it when the information is this beautiful.
Hello Kim,
Thanks so much for your response and the compliment, we appreciate it!
Thanks for your support,
-Gail
Thank you so much! Exciting to see
all the wonderful color possibilities .
Hello Maria,
You are welcome, glad you enjoyed this post. Thank you for visiting the blog and your thoughtful comment.
-Gail
Excellent info with appropriate pictures! Just discovered your ste and I am impressed. Thanks you👌🎨Majda
Hello Majda,
Thank you for visiting our blog and your positive feedback. More posts and images to come!
-Gail
I love your informative and inspiring blog Gail. Thank you for doing this. I was recently in NYC and met you at your showroom. How generous of you to give me all that time in showing me the different paint colours and how they mixed with certain colours. It was one of the best highlights of our weekend trip. I love the paints that I bought , my only regret is that i didn’t buy more 🙂 I see that you ship to Canada so I will be ordering in the future. Thanks once again. Cheers
Hello Christine!
Thanks so much for your positive feedback, I do remember your visit! We appreciate your support and acknowledgement of our endeavors, glad you had the chance to see the showroom and colors in person. Thank you again,
Best regards,
-Gail