COLOUR: MIXING AND MODIFYING GREEN

Green seems to be a challenge to many, me inlcuded, maybe because it is such a natural colour and paint is by definition artificial, so it is easy to try and paint a landscape and get an artificial looking result.

Of course there is no such thing as a wrong colour but for the kind of painting you are trying to achieve you need to get the colour to fit. Like in music there are no wrong notes on an instrument but you proabably want to play in key and in tune.
Some artists like very bright vivid colours, David Hockney some of Van Gogh, and many others.

If you compare these with older art you can see a big  difference, in the older art the grees is much less green, more subdued.
 Willelm Roleof
Even the Impressionists were fairly gentle in their use of green, here's Monet's famous poppy field. 

You will find a lot of contemporary artists like to keep their greens under control but it is ok to go a bit wild and think 'I want my greens to be vibrant'. It is good to get to know the kind of colours you like, you don't have to paint like everyone else.

Anyway it is good to know what greens you have, what they look like and what range of greens they mix.
While I like to think we can use all our colours it is ok to  find what you like and stick to it, there are lots of artists who never touch viridian or emerald finding them far too vivid. And for some artsits a noaaow range of light dark and middle green is sufficient.
Some never use ready made greens at all prefering to mix them from blues and yellows.

Essentially you need a starting green, a light and pale green,then a light and bright, deeper greens, warm green, autumnal greens, cool green, dark greens, and grey-greens.
I've started with Sap green and put out what I want to modify it with: lighter side: Lemon yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Raw Sienna (yellow ochre will do a similar job) Cadmium Orange, Alizarin Crimson, on the other side, Ultramarine, Burnt Umber, Black (Payne's grey will give an even stronger dark green)

DO MAKE NOTES AS YOU MIX, I HAVE ALSO PUT THE COLOURS on neat WHICH  I AM MIXING WITH

You will see I haven't attempted to match the colours but to get the kind of colours I see, lighter and paler in the background, lighter and brighter in the foreground, pale blue-greens for horizon trees. Very dark greens for big trees, browner greens for row of trees and shrubs.

Don't worry about matching my colours (I think I could do better!) but try and see from what you can mix, what suits the different areas.