What color pallete you can use to paint a tree on a landscape?

Question

I usually have a hard time painting trees or shrubs in a landscape. It always turned out to be very bright green or green but does not show a realistic effect of trees or shrubs. I want to paint it in a realistic or even impressionistic style. I would like to know the pallete of colors I can use. Like yellow and black will make a green. Green plus blue plus black will show a color of a pine tree. Any answer will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

You are not getting a realistic effect because you think all that is necessary is to find "the right green". Color is secondary to value in realism. You need to establish a light source for your trees. The colors nearest the light source will be light and warm, the shadows will be dark and cool (bluer). There is also the form and texture of the trees to think about. And trees are never just GREEN. You need to work some warm colors in. Reds and purples in the shadows, yellows and oranges in the sunlit areas.

Answer 2

I would suggest that you don't use one green. Make a dark green that can be used to make leves that are in a shadow. Also you should never make all the leves or else it will look like kindergarden work. Also think that you are drawing a tree you have the scelaton, body and forage (I think) you have lighter places and darker ones. To make a panting look realistic what I do is in the lighter spots is paint with a little bit of water color like the green or white.

Answer 3

It sounds like your colors are too "tubish". I never use any color right out of the tube - I always mix. I tell my students that SIENNA is the great equalizer, lol. Almost any time a color is not looking realistic enough or needs to be toned down try mixing a little sienna with it.

Don't forget that everything has a dark side and a lighter side depending on the lighting. Experiment!

Answer 4

My best advice to you is to buy a colour wheel and experiment. These are cheap from any art supply store and have simple directions printed on them, a lot quicker than studying colour theory. On your pallette mix 12 or more shades of green with yellow and blue values and a couple with brown values and use these to build your areas of light and dark. the overall effect isnt so much the colours used but how they play off each other. Also I would advise against the use of black to darken your green try a touch of any dark blue it gives much more life than black. I hope this has been helpful, good luck

Answer 5

Jude --yellow and BLUE make green.

In an oil painting class once---we turned the canvas upside down and you put the paint on the brush and start at the top of the canvas with your brown and drag it to the bottom and taper it off.
Do it over and over from that main stroke , and you are making branches, ya know?

I forgot to tell you how we made the sky--right back,.....
We stuck our fingers in the paint and where the land will be--we left that alone.
Above that, though, we made four red dots and above that, four yellow ones, and above that, four blue ones.

We THEN made TWO BIG Xs in the sky--connecting all those dots--I THINK we still used our fingers--use what you wish.

Then we swished back and forth from the top of the sky to the bottom of the land.
Everything came out so cool--the yellow and red made an orange sky---
THAT was when we turned the painting upside down to draw the tree from the bottom---you get it?

Then you blot your brush in red, then white and using the end of brushes--bounce on the canvas and fill in the tree with red and white and pink flowers.

Yellow and blue make green.
red and yellow= orange
red and blue= purple

Answer 6

Anything you fancy.
YOU are the artist. Don't feel committed to the traditional green colours, you'd get a green pie but no artistic work.
I use blues, reds, yellows (which bring us back to Some greens) browns light and dark, and white.
Don't forget the light either: it's somehow more difficult if you work from photographs rather than from live nature.

Answer 7

I would just experiment with color using blue & green, blue & purple, yellow & blue. For a palette either a throw away palette paper or a white palette with a few little tubs to mix your paint in, a wooden palette, a plastic lid.

Answer 8

use brown on the top to show the leaves