Hey now. That very light bright green that you think is not in nature is ABSOLUTELY alive in nature! Maybe you should come to New England in May and June and see all the trees and plants, the buds and the young leaves are all lime green :) Also I have plants of this color range in my house, I have a neon pothos, some regular pothos, some different spiderplants, and some philodendrons, and I see all sorts of bright greens from many of them. Oh yeah, and bamboo too! I love your mixing and swatching process. Prussian Blue is tied with Indigo as my favorite blue 🤩🤩
Omg I didn’t know this was you. I learned to make a bear with you on RUclips. Now I want to make leaves. Thank you so much for sharing urself with us. ❤
Oh my gosh Ellen this is just what I needed as I can never get the green colours right. i shall be making a colour chart like shown and thank you for sharing this video with us xx
Never thought about the greens looking natural 😬. Very helpful. I'm not a great artist but would still like my paintings to look nice. Thanks for the lesson.
I can't thank you enough for this amazing video. I had always wondered how to get that olive green color plus all of the other shades you showed. You have saved me a fortune on buying watercolors and keeping it simple. I am 80 years old and really new at watercolors. I am slowly buying Winsor and Newton Professional tubes and really wish I had a list of basic colors to buy.
A basic colour list would be a warm and cool of each of your primaries in what’s known as a split primary palette, of which the following is an example tho not the only way you can go by any means; red (alizarin crimson/any warm red like cad red deep), yellow (lemon/cadmium or other warm yellow)and blue(ultramarine/Prussian blue) plus white and black(tho if you’re a purist you may wish to leave those out, or get a white gouche instead). Personally I’d add a grey tho you CAN mix great greys, but I love Payne’s grey both as a colour and as a mixing tool, and a cerulean blue because those light delicate blues are hard to get from the dark blues sometimes. And you don’t need to use just those colours(other than Alizarin crimson….this is such a versatile mixing colour that it deserves a place on any palette), just remember that you want a warm(red undertones) and a cool(blue/green undertones) of each primary colour. From those bare bones you can add colours depending on what you paint, someone who paints mostly florals will use different colours(pinks and yellows) from someone who paints mostly landscapes(browns and greens that can be modified)
Thank you. I am going to do a Prussian and cad yellow study and hang it where I will be sure to see it. Green is the most difficult color for me to paint with. Oh, and baby blue. Yikes!
OMG This tutorial is exactly what I've been looking for since my greens look so artificial. Now I can create a wide range of green shades to my liking. THANK YOU SO MUCH Ellen.❤
Mixing greens is easier to just have like moss green, leaf green, Veridian, etc and just add a little white to lighten it or black.... wait this may be Gouache I'm thinking about, anyway in watercolor you can just add water to lighten your shade of green. Love your tutorials Ellen. I think I like gouache more. But I use watercolor for backgrounds and skies. Then gouache over that. Thanks for your knowledge you share it's most appreciated 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Extremely helpful after watching your videos for some time now and wanting to mix my own greens but lazy or not sure exactly how or which mix would be best. Thank you so much for this video!!
Thank you green always seems to be a problem for me. I just kept buying tubes of different shades of green. I understand how to mix paints by watching your video.
Great video Ellen! Great to see the different blues and all the greens they make. Great comparison! I too will swatch my blues and yellows to get the best natural greens. Thank you!
I have had a try at this Ellen and think that I will just practice with the Prussian blue, which I love. Thanks you for this guidance. I do not have 100% cotton paper though.
This was such a helpful video!! I've probably been playing with watercolor for about two years, and I love it! I try to mix greens, but kind of do it without a plan, or actually knowing how to pick the right colors to mix together. This will help! On another subject, I feel like I take good care of my brushes, but lately I'm questioning if some things I'm doing, such as mixing my paints with my good brushes, are contributing to unnecessary wear and tear on them. I've never heard that we should use older brushes to mix paints until this video. I'm wondering if you would consider doing a video about how to keep our brushes in good condition? I only use water to clean them, I don't even know if that's correct. How do we get the tips of our round brushes to stay pointy? I think this type of video may be really beneficial to a lot of us, and you have such a wonderful way of teaching us! Thanks Ellen, I love your videos!
Brushes should be stored, when dry, point up, in a jar or something. Do not do this when they’re wet because water will run back under the ferrule. You want to preserve those bristles and the brush tip at all costs, so every time you finish with them ensure they’re rinsed thoroughly, excess water removed and the points reshaped before being left to dry flat. That’s also why you don’t leave good watercolour bushes point down in the water….you’ll deform the point. You should be able to clean the brush sufficiently with plain water….some folk use soap but I find it’s REALLY hard to rinse out completely and any left in the hair will make it sticky and interfere with your paint so personally, water.You can also use a brush roll to store your brushes, tho I’d be inclined to use a brush cover as well if that’s what you choose. A brush cover is simply something that covers the hairs and protects them. I use plastic tubing that you can purchase at diy shops in different sizes. Remember the tube needs to fit the widest part of the brush, the shoulder, just above the head, and be cut long enough to totally cover the bristles when pushed home. If your brush tip needs reshaping, you can dip it into a dilute solution of gum Arabic, shape the tip then leave to dry for a few days. It’ll dry stiff…..just like in fact, it is when fresh from the factory, because that’s what they do before shipping. Gum Arabic is water soluable so will rinse out of the brush the next time you use it, but the hairs will hopefully have been trained and will keep their nice shape. As to mixing, yes you def should be using an older brush to mix with. Mixing is hard on a brush and they’re not cheap so it makes sense to not use good brushes to mix. I have a few old, tattered synthetic hog flats that I use for mixing(unless I get carried away during painting and I forget lol….c’est La vie I guess lol)
@@paulinemegson8519 Thank you so much for going into so much detail for me, and giving me so much helpful information! I never leave my paintbrushes in water, and while they are drying, I have a contraption that allows them to hang upside down to air dry. I will try to remember to mix paints without using my good brushes! Thanks again!!
Very helpful..it seems that Prussian blue is the most versatile,making natural greens while the others are useful for decorative,abstract compositions🙂
Yellow and black can make some interesting greens, too. Tube greens can be useful as a starting point, like olive, sap, perylene, green-gold, or as a mixing color....but even these are rarely right straight from the tube. Everything needs a little push with some added color.
Thank you so much for this video as I was painting green yesterday and needed some guidance! I am definitely going to do a swatch page for future reference!! So great!! ❤
Definitely very helpful with learning how to mix greens. Would Sap green be a natural looking green? Also with the olive green, Viridian green & the third one that’s not natural, could you add more yellow or blue to make them a bit more natural looking?
Great tutorial Ellen. I'm taking a local in-person class on watercolor landscapes and this exercise will be very helpful in mixing the various greens I will need. I do have tubes of various shades of green - can, or do you ever mix tube greens with cad yellow or any other colors for foliage?
Excellent video. I love greens. Do you mix larger amounts of your favorite blends and store them for larger works/future or do you just have an eye for it from experience?
Does mixing on the paper work for gouache as well? I’ve been water colouring for a while and only recently started gouache. Thanks for your great tutorials. X
That’s funny because I can’t stand the greens I get by mixing them. I prefer to use a base green like pthalo green or hookers green and mix another color into that because I can get a huge variety of different greens from using those as my base. Earthy greens, desert greens, vibrant greens, deep greens, mossy greens, minty greens, you name it! But using blue and yellow limits me in the different kinds of greens I can get in comparison to using an unnatural green color for my base.
Ok I'm not sure why water coffee and tea are considered different consistency. They are all water based no difference accept transparency. In my opinion it doesn't make sense. At least not to me, what am I missing. Now milk is thicker than water and cream even moreso. Then maybe right out the tube.
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Thank you for showing us Ellen ❤️❤️🇬🇧🇬🇧
Perylene green is a wonderful color to add to darken any green.
Hey now. That very light bright green that you think is not in nature is ABSOLUTELY alive in nature! Maybe you should come to New England in May and June and see all the trees and plants, the buds and the young leaves are all lime green :) Also I have plants of this color range in my house, I have a neon pothos, some regular pothos, some different spiderplants, and some philodendrons, and I see all sorts of bright greens from many of them. Oh yeah, and bamboo too!
I love your mixing and swatching process. Prussian Blue is tied with Indigo as my favorite blue 🤩🤩
As a beginner that demo was very helpful! Thanks, Liz
Neat video! Better greens
Thank you thank you!!! Excellant demonstration ❤
Omg I didn’t know this was you. I learned to make a bear with you on RUclips. Now I want to make leaves. Thank you so much for sharing urself with us. ❤
I appreciate your demonstrations so much. Thank you!
I was so bummed about not having chromium oxide, but watching you sure did put a smile of delight on my face. Thank you so much.
Oh my gosh Ellen this is just what I needed as I can never get the green colours right. i shall be making a colour chart like shown and thank you for sharing this video with us xx
I'm green with envy over your knowledge of mixing greens. Great tutorial, so brilliantly explained, many thanks indeed...
Gerald UK
Never thought about the greens looking natural 😬. Very helpful. I'm not a great artist but would still like my paintings to look nice. Thanks for the lesson.
Thanks so much. I was so happy to find a tutorial on mixing greens. Now I need to learn to mix grays…I always end up with more brown than gray.
Such a helpful tutorial…simply explained and demonstrated..thank you for time and patience in teaching us newbies…we need you❤
I can't thank you enough for this amazing video. I had always wondered how to get that olive green color plus all of the other shades you showed. You have saved me a fortune on buying watercolors and keeping it simple. I am 80 years old and really new at watercolors. I am slowly buying Winsor and Newton Professional tubes and really wish I had a list of basic colors to buy.
A basic colour list would be a warm and cool of each of your primaries in what’s known as a split primary palette, of which the following is an example tho not the only way you can go by any means; red (alizarin crimson/any warm red like cad red deep), yellow (lemon/cadmium or other warm yellow)and blue(ultramarine/Prussian blue) plus white and black(tho if you’re a purist you may wish to leave those out, or get a white gouche instead). Personally I’d add a grey tho you CAN mix great greys, but I love Payne’s grey both as a colour and as a mixing tool, and a cerulean blue because those light delicate blues are hard to get from the dark blues sometimes. And you don’t need to use just those colours(other than Alizarin crimson….this is such a versatile mixing colour that it deserves a place on any palette), just remember that you want a warm(red undertones) and a cool(blue/green undertones) of each primary colour. From those bare bones you can add colours depending on what you paint, someone who paints mostly florals will use different colours(pinks and yellows) from someone who paints mostly landscapes(browns and greens that can be modified)
Thank you. I am going to do a Prussian and cad yellow study and hang it where I will be sure to see it. Green is the most difficult color for me to paint with. Oh, and baby blue. Yikes!
Super helpful Ellen!!
This video is so helpful. Thank you for the tutorial ❤👍🏼🙏🏼
So helpful! I also appreciated the mention about cream, milk, coffee, tea.
Thanks Ellen! Very helpful!!!🎨💕
Great video and so helpful!
Love the comparison! Thanks!
❤ SO HELPFUL!!
Thank you now I know about the peacock blue! Much appreciated!
OMG This tutorial is exactly what I've been looking for since my greens look so artificial. Now I can create a wide range of green shades to my liking. THANK YOU SO MUCH Ellen.❤
Yes very helpful.
Mixing greens is easier to just have like moss green, leaf green, Veridian, etc and just add a little white to lighten it or black.... wait this may be Gouache I'm thinking about, anyway in watercolor you can just add water to lighten your shade of green. Love your tutorials Ellen. I think I like gouache more. But I use watercolor for backgrounds and skies. Then gouache over that. Thanks for your knowledge you share it's most appreciated 🎉🎉🎉🎉
I love the mixes with Prussia Blue. They were the first that I tried to achieve a more natural green. It also works with other yellows.
Very helpful
Thank you Ellen. This is so important for us to learn. We appreciate the work you put into helping us improve and enjoy watercolor!
Extremely helpful after watching your videos for some time now and wanting to mix my own greens but lazy or not sure exactly how or which mix would be best. Thank you so much for this video!!
Thank you ! I have always wondered how to make the best greens !
Awesome thanks 😊
This was so interesting Ellen. And so helpful! Thanks so much for doing this video.
Thank you green always seems to be a problem for me. I just kept buying tubes of different shades of green. I understand how to mix paints by watching your video.
Great video Ellen! Great to see the different blues and all the greens they make. Great comparison! I too will swatch my blues and yellows to get the best natural greens. Thank you!
Thank you so much
I have had a try at this Ellen and think that I will just practice with the Prussian blue, which I love. Thanks you for this guidance. I do not have 100% cotton paper though.
Bravo! Can you do one of these on browns?? ❤
This was such a helpful video!! I've probably been playing with watercolor for about two years, and I love it! I try to mix greens, but kind of do it without a plan, or actually knowing how to pick the right colors to mix together. This will help! On another subject, I feel like I take good care of my brushes, but lately I'm questioning if some things I'm doing, such as mixing my paints with my good brushes, are contributing to unnecessary wear and tear on them. I've never heard that we should use older brushes to mix paints until this video. I'm wondering if you would consider doing a video about how to keep our brushes in good condition? I only use water to clean them, I don't even know if that's correct. How do we get the tips of our round brushes to stay pointy? I think this type of video may be really beneficial to a lot of us, and you have such a wonderful way of teaching us! Thanks Ellen, I love your videos!
Brushes should be stored, when dry, point up, in a jar or something. Do not do this when they’re wet because water will run back under the ferrule. You want to preserve those bristles and the brush tip at all costs, so every time you finish with them ensure they’re rinsed thoroughly, excess water removed and the points reshaped before being left to dry flat. That’s also why you don’t leave good watercolour bushes point down in the water….you’ll deform the point. You should be able to clean the brush sufficiently with plain water….some folk use soap but I find it’s REALLY hard to rinse out completely and any left in the hair will make it sticky and interfere with your paint so personally, water.You can also use a brush roll to store your brushes, tho I’d be inclined to use a brush cover as well if that’s what you choose. A brush cover is simply something that covers the hairs and protects them. I use plastic tubing that you can purchase at diy shops in different sizes. Remember the tube needs to fit the widest part of the brush, the shoulder, just above the head, and be cut long enough to totally cover the bristles when pushed home. If your brush tip needs reshaping, you can dip it into a dilute solution of gum Arabic, shape the tip then leave to dry for a few days. It’ll dry stiff…..just like in fact, it is when fresh from the factory, because that’s what they do before shipping. Gum Arabic is water soluable so will rinse out of the brush the next time you use it, but the hairs will hopefully have been trained and will keep their nice shape. As to mixing, yes you def should be using an older brush to mix with. Mixing is hard on a brush and they’re not cheap so it makes sense to not use good brushes to mix. I have a few old, tattered synthetic hog flats that I use for mixing(unless I get carried away during painting and I forget lol….c’est La vie I guess lol)
@@paulinemegson8519 Thank you so much for going into so much detail for me, and giving me so much helpful information! I never leave my paintbrushes in water, and while they are drying, I have a contraption that allows them to hang upside down to air dry. I will try to remember to mix paints without using my good brushes! Thanks again!!
Great video! Thanks Ellen! That was a lot of work. You always go the extra mile!:)
Very helpful..it seems that Prussian blue is the most versatile,making natural greens while the others are useful for decorative,abstract compositions🙂
Yellow and black can make some interesting greens, too. Tube greens can be useful as a starting point, like olive, sap, perylene, green-gold, or as a mixing color....but even these are rarely right straight from the tube. Everything needs a little push with some added color.
Very helpful. Thank you for this!❤
Thank you so much for this video as I was painting green yesterday and needed some guidance! I am definitely going to do a swatch page for future reference!! So great!! ❤
Ok, ok I’ll mix my greens and take the tube greens off my pallet. More room for blues!
I buy olive green, sap green and Perlyene green. Those seem similar to what you are mixing I go thru a lot of sap green.
Hi Ellen, i love your channel! I saw the link for Saral graphite paper, can i use use it to tranfer my drawnings on watercolor paper? Thanks a lot!
Definitely very helpful with learning how to mix greens. Would Sap green be a natural looking green? Also with the olive green, Viridian green & the third one that’s not natural, could you add more yellow or blue to make them a bit more natural looking?
Great tutorial Ellen. I'm taking a local in-person class on watercolor landscapes and this exercise will be very helpful in mixing the various greens I will need. I do have tubes of various shades of green - can, or do you ever mix tube greens with cad yellow or any other colors for foliage?
Excellent video. I love greens. Do you mix larger amounts of your favorite blends and store them for larger works/future or do you just have an eye for it from experience?
Does mixing on the paper work for gouache as well? I’ve been water colouring for a while and only recently started gouache. Thanks for your great tutorials. X
I’ve actually seen that bright leaf green in nature. Go to a botanical garden you’ll see every shade. Except viridian 😆
❤
That’s funny because I can’t stand the greens I get by mixing them. I prefer to use a base green like pthalo green or hookers green and mix another color into that because I can get a huge variety of different greens from using those as my base. Earthy greens, desert greens, vibrant greens, deep greens, mossy greens, minty greens, you name it! But using blue and yellow limits me in the different kinds of greens I can get in comparison to using an unnatural green color for my base.
I agree. Plus I thought Prussian wasn’t very lightfast
I will never remember all of that since I have brain fog.
Take notes! That’s what I do! And then I re watch it.
Ok I'm not sure why water coffee and tea are considered different consistency. They are all water based no difference accept transparency. In my opinion it doesn't make sense. At least not to me, what am I missing. Now milk is thicker than water and cream even moreso. Then maybe right out the tube.
❤