Cabbage Greens - Work In Progress

I'm teaching a watercolor class at my home studio and decided I needed an example of greens. So, after all the "cabbage and black-eye-pea" focus for New Years', I thought I'd paint a cabbage painting. The reference photo was taken in a vegetable garden. I loved the beautiful, lacy cabbage leaves. Many "greens" found in watercolors are unnatural looking, and need to be greyed down by using its complement, some form of red. Daniel Smith's Undersea Green, made a perfect dark, dulled green to use as a base for my color mixtures. With Undersea Green, I used shots of viridian, or I mixed it with my Phthalo Green/Perm Alizarin mixture I use to get my blacks. M Graham has a yummy bright yellow-green called Azo Green and when mixed with Phthalo blue, it makes a bright, vibrant spring green. This combination is used in the cabbage head itself, leaning it toward different shifts of hues by adding French Ultramarine, or varing the strength of Azo. When painting with various greens, it is very important to bring the painting al together with continuity of color. Glazing different greens on top of one another helps unify the greens. Using Undersea Green as a base to mix all the other greens in 75% of the painting, also helps to unify. Glazing the Azo-Pthalo mixture over parts of the Undersea green, brings together the entire family of greens. This painting still has many glazes and details yet to be completed. Stay tuned!