Scott uses several photos and paintings to help you understand the variety of greens and offers suggestions to help pinpoint the variety of greens in a scene.
You are always painting a color as it relates to another color.
In the book, Creative Illustration, Andrew Loomis says, "All color is relative to its surrounding influence."
All colors can be compared to colors around them to see if they are "redder", "yellower", or "bluer".
When speaking of color temperature, temperature refers to a color being warm or cool.
Warm colors are reds, oranges, and yellows. They move forward.
Colors that recede are blues, greens, and violets. These are cooler colors.
Every color can be defined as warm or cool depending on what the color is being compared to. Take red for example - when it moves towards orange it is considered on the warmer side because it is heading towards yellow. When a red moves towards violet it is on the cooler side.
Compare each color to the color around it to determine if it is warmer or cooler.
No matter what the color is, look for the primaries in it-- how much yellow and how much blue is in it?
Look at the color wheel to better understand warms and cools. Colors that move towards yellow are warmer. Colors that move toward blue are cooler. Red can move towards warm and cool .
When more of the compliment is in the color, it heads towards neutral.
Practice naming colors within a color family. For instance, take the color green and compare it to a variety of greens. Is it "yellower" in comparison to another green? "Bluer"? "Redder"?
Practice comparing color relationships between all colors.
If you don't have relativity to another color, you cannot compare it. "He's tall", yes, but he's tall compared to what?
In your writing journal, note what you have learned about color and color relationships.
Now go outside and study the greens in nature. Photograph the green scene and look at the photo; compare what your eye sees by looking at the scene vs. what the camera has seemingly left out.
Do this outdoor camera vs. eye comparison every time you are going to paint a scene in order to recognize the difference between what your eye sees and what the camera sees.
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