A Rainbow of Greens

Green is not a color, it is a world unto itself.

Summertime 1, A Rainbow of Greens, Oil on Arches Oil Paper, by Melissa Carmon

Summertime 2, A Rainbow of Greens, Oil on Arches Oil Paper, by Melissa Carmon

More than any other color, our eyes are sensitive to green. We actually perceive a rainbow of greens: yellow greens, orange greens, green greens, and blue greens.

This makes green very difficult to work with for painters. Green is not a color, it is a world unto itself. It is hard to describe what it is like to compose with color green. It is like weaving three story plots together to make a mystery novel or writing recursive counterpoint in music. With other colors, you might be composing in two dimensions, but with green you are composing in three.