No green tube paint will ever, or can ever, mimic the greens of the natural world. I struggled for years, wondering which green most closely resembled nature. And I came close when I said, 'chrome oxide green'; however, now I feel that no straight green from a tube is natural. Mixed greens are more natural, more real to what we are capable of seeing with our eyes. And greens are highly dependent upon their environments and surroundings in order to look correct or 'right'. For this reason, green is a difficult color with which to paint. Think of a painting that has attempted to use all green and has successfully pulled it off. I cannot. Perhaps this has become my new challenge: an attempt at green. So much of woodland green is black or dark brown. And so much of garden green is actually more focus on the colors of surrounding flowers. Green is more than a mix of blue and yellow...it is chlorophyll. Is it possible to capture and paint the effects of chlorophyll? Is that why green is so hard to paint with? If it is, that means green is largely dependent on the sun for its physical properties. So then, what does this mean for all the other colors?
-an excerpt from my journal 7/31/07
