Falling in Love with my New Green!

I live in the Pacific Northwest and when sketching, what do you see the most unless you live in the city? Come on guess! nope not that… nope that neither,  yes you got it!  Pine trees, all kinds and all varieties you might imagine and finding the perfect green in watercolors is challenging! I own and use the following green watercolors; Sap Green from QOR Watercolors, Sap Green from Windsor & Newton Professional Watercolors, Windsor Green (Blue Shade) from Windsor & Newton Professional Watercolors, Hooker’s Green from Windsor & Newton Professional Watercolors and my newest addition Jadeite Genuine from Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors. All of my greens from Windsor & Newton Professional Watercolors are very nice but so far they don’t match the intense green I was looking for. A green that can provide the illusion of the beautiful green forests of the Pacific Northwest. In my search I stumbled upon QOR colors and I will definitely talk about them in more detail in a future post. I like them a lot and the green shade of Sap Green I found that it does a very good job with the evergreens, not perfect, or at least not the intensity I was looking for but I could live with that. Never the less my search continued.

I am very lucky that Daniel Smith Art supplies store is not horribly far away from home, roughly 50 miles away. One day due to work commitments I was 10 minutes away from this place and I could not resist stopping there on my way home. WOW I found paradise! “The missing link,” “El Dorado.” There I resumed my search for the perfect green.  Stumbled upon Jadeite Genuine, a beautiful shade of green that is so pure and intense that brings tears to my eyes, well probably not that much but very close. This particular color is part of a collection called the Prima Tek colors. One thing I learned about Daniel Smith Watercolors is that they are built from the ground up meaning they use pigments from the earth to make the Prima Tek watercolor! Daniel Smith has a mineralogist that travels the world finding the right minerals for these exquisite colors. In particular Jadeite Genuine is made of two minerals, Jade and Nephrite. This color is a series 4 and the price is higher that the other ones but it is totally worth it! The price is $13.77 for a 5ml tube (small) but is currently on sale for $10.33. If you live far from the Seattle or Bellevue area you can always buy Daniel Smith online, this is the web address; www.danielsmith.com
As follows these are a couple of sketches I have done using this beautiful Jadeite Genuine Watercolor.

               

I drew this sketch of my neighborhood a week ago as I was waiting for a storm that never showed up! You can see the contrast between the pine trees and the Sap green of the bushes and grass.

This is another sketch I did yesterday while waiting for some new tires at Les Schwab. All the pine trees are painted with Daniel Smith’s Jadeite Genuine and the bushes are done with Sap Green from QOR watercolors.

Well this is my Urban Sketching journey for the last couple of weeks, experimenting and learning more about color. Now that the Fall has arrived there will be a lot more pportunities to experience new colors, shades and vibrant tones.
Until next time and Happy Sketching,
Daisy