Under painting critique please!
 

I bit the bullet, and with the help of William and all of the input contained in the "Tips" & "Palette" threads, I purchased up-to-date oil supplies.

For my first go, I am using one of three reference photos that I used for a commission of a 5 year old in pastels. Your input is greatly appreciated.

This is the reference:

This is the full canvas, 16 x 20. I found it difficult to photograph with out a reflection, is there a trick to this?

I tried to follow Karin's value tips for under paintings and the instructions in Chris' book. I am not using the "glazing" technique, so I wasn't sure if this detail of value was necessary, or if a "sketch" would have been fine. This is the detail:

For some reason these look rougher than when I was painting.

First of all, you have a beautiful photo reference to work from and this should be a lot of fun to paint.

But your underpainting is much too thin. Your paint must be buttery, very thick (think peanut butter, and completely cover the canvas.

The underpainting is your opportunity to clearly establish light, shadow and the halftones, i.e., the smooth areas of transition from light to shadow. This can only be done in thick paint. Save your "painterly" brushwork for the upper layers where it will show to best advantage.

Secondly, your range of values is much too great. No dark should be more than a 50% grey value. Check out my underpainting demo elsewhere on this forum...it is of a BLACK dog and you can see how dark the paint gets. If your underpainting gets too dark, there will be "no place to go" when you begin with the color layers and those dark areas will become "dead."

Karin, thanks for your response. Actually when I started this I had printed out your thread on the values and under painting. Thought I followed it pretty well until the end, where I thought the darks were not popping enough, thus the raw umber is not grayed down.

I thought I was to use the 3 value as the imprimatura plus as part of the figure. I didn

If you are going to do layer on top of this, save the dark accents for later. If you do not plan to go farther, dark accents are OK here.

If you paint in layers, each layer should be dry before you add the next. If you are using the direct method, you can paint wet into wet. Just to confuse you more, you can combine these methods if you wish. :) But just remember, you cannot glaze onto a wet surface or you will mess it up.

If you are a patient person you can avoid the medium. If you're like me, you'll want to use something to make it dry overnight, i.e., Liquin, Galkyd Lite, etc. Don't ever use turpentine as a medium. Turpentine is for cleaning your brushes.

Hi, Beth.

Just a note of clarification. I rely on a three-value thumbnail in order to establish a framework for the design and composition. I think paintings work better with fewer rather than more values. Sometimes the finished work sticks very close to three values, but more frequently five, sometimes more. I know from past experience, when I see I have a surface that's visually weak, it's usually because my values have gotten out of control.

Also, my terre verte drawing is not a true underpainting, it's really just a monochromatic sketch. I am not a glaze painter and have no experience with the type of technique used by Karin, Michael Georges, and others.

Good luck,

That makes sense Chris, I was afraid I was doing more than necessary. I did the 3 values as a pencil sketch, then went by Karin

This is a close up of the hand held shot.

This is one shot with the light bouncing off of a white board on the right side, and light on the left angled away from the canvas.

Off I go now to the photographing your artwork area to see what everyone suggests.

Thank you so much for your help!

No need for further comment here, I have started this one over! :D

Dear Beth,

One of the great wonders of oil painting is that you can start out in so many different ways to achieve a spectacular result.

If I were new to oil painting I would buy Peggy Baumgaertner's video series - worth buying, of course, even if you're not new at it - because it takes you step by step through an entire head and shoulders. You can actually see what she's talking about, from point A to B, all the way to Z. Peggy says she is an alla prima painter but she isn't "premier coup" (think: Richard Schmid). Peggy doesn't underpaint in the traditional sense - she paints "into the soup" in layers.

I wanted to point out Peggy's method to you (it's also the Egelis' method, by the way) because I sense that you're trying to combine underpainting methods with direct painting methods.

I don't believe that there is "one" way to paint. In fact, I'm starting to believe that "Character Equals Destiny" insofar as an artist selects a painting method. The painting method will, in fact, choose you. In my own work, I'm trying to combine alla prima with a type of initial underpainting.

I don't know if Karin scrapes everything down when she underpaints, but that's what I'd do with your painting as I see it on the forum - the brush marks are causing reflection, and you won't want brush marks when you move to a finish layer (unless you want a "Russian Impressionist" style).

Love the loosely clasped hands - make sure your frame won't cut them off at the bottom edge.

This will be a lovely painting.

Linda

Linda, thank you for all of your input!

I used oils many years ago, and have forgotten a ton. I did start this again and you are right, I just started to do what felt right. I have not purchased the Maroger medium that Marvin and William like, I bought the wrong thing

No I don't scrape, sand or blend anything down. I have plenty of brush strokes and palette knife marks that show on the surface of my paintings. When you paint with thick paint, it is the nature of the beast.

Dear Karen,

I just visited your glorious website and I see what you're saying. There is a wonderful fluidity in your paint handling - no wonder so many people are trying your methods!

What I meant to say in my previous post is that it's best to avoid ridges of paint in the initial layout, especially in flesh areas, unless you know for sure you'll want a bump there later.

Dear Beth,

Many thanks for your very kind words about my website.

I think lots of artists worry that they'll embarrass themselves in workshops with other artists. (I certainly worry about that, myself.) But I never let that stop me from doing anything, and neither should you.

I'm really looking forward to the workshop, too!

Linda