To the underpainters
 

Help: I am trying for once to use underpainting for a portrait.

I am currently working on it, but I would love to hear from the people who use this tecnique: am I on the right path, or too high in values?

My client likes Bronzino's portraits, and I am having fun trying to recapture that feeling in a more modern and relaxed pose.

I still have to think about the background - I might include a vase of orchids - and have one of my kids pose in his trousers (the boy was wearing shorts on the day) to study folds properly.

I hope someone can help

Ilaria

Dear Ilaria:

This is pretty close to the technique I use and have a few suggestions at this point:

1) Establish the background now before you work any further on the figure. It will play an important role when creating your flesh tones.

2) Watch the edges. When working on the background, try to soften and vary edges not only with the background paint but with the white as well. It's trickier to soften edges with this technique, but possible.

3) Re-study the hands. Make sure your drawing is correct; making changes late in the process is difficult.

4) Try to complete all of the large masses like the shirt and pants first. These masses have the same effect on flesh tones as the background does.

5) Have a color idea for the portrait in mind or better, on paper, and know which of your pigments are transparent.

6) I'll give you a few tips on glazing when the time comes.

Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

Scott

Ilaria,

I am very interested in how your painting develops as I, too, am attempting underpainting and glazing in a copy of Girl with a Pearl (over in the Master Copy section). Your abilities, of course, are exquisite and reflect your level of accomplishment as an artist. I am a lowly beginner!!

So, I hope to learn from your painting here. I really like what you have going here. You may want to see what Garth Herrick posted in Master Copy Critiques as advice to my beginning painting. He makes some good points about luminosity, etc.

Scott,

I hope you share your advice to Ilaria here on the forum so that I (and others) may learn, too!! Can I ask one question? I see that Ilaria is really developing form and that her masses are not flat at all. I think I got confused somewhere in thinking that the underpainting should remain without detail (like the highlights in the eyes, lightest lights and darkest darks)? Are there two schools of thought on this and which do you adhere to and why? Also, when finished with the underpainting should it be varnished before the glazing begins??

Believe me Joyce, I will do my best to help Ilaria because it might get me out of having to buy two boxes of expensive chocolates, but never mind.

The form of the portrait comes from the under painting. It is advisable to leave the catch lights and other minor touches until last. Why? When you put in the catch lights too soon you fail to see clearly the structure of the eye, the roundness of it. I often work on a portrait placed upside down to see the form alone, not what my eye recognizes to be an eye. But putting in catch lights and little highlights before the general structure of the head is finished is tempting and I do it to.

I'm a little worried about her under painting because the shadows on the face are warm when they should be cool, so another approach may be required instead of simply glazing the under painting. I'm also wondering where the light source is coming from. But I must say I was very impressed when I first saw it; it's not easy to do.

Varnish should not be used in glazing. I use retouch varnish when the painting is finished and dry to the touch. A year later I apply a final varnish.

Dr Jeckell
 

Scott,

I knew i could count on your advice! (bye bye to my chocolate)

Thank you very much, I will follow literally all the points you have made as I agree with everything except the hands were not done yet, just lightly whitened.

I have worked in raw umber and white, do you think that's too hot? I tried white and black but I was not happy with it., and continued with umber. I hope I will be able to fix temperatures later, maybe painting opaque.

I MUST be disciplined and wait before starting to glaze, I have a couple more decisions to make, but I am really excited about trying.

In the meanwhile I keep going at the my art school's open studio where I pretend to be super contemporary, Uglow and Gwenn John
(I found these two painters are mythical for every female art teacher in the kingdom), hiding my Mr Hyde life as a glazer.)

Joyce, thank you very much for your compliments, but I have a lot to learn. I will check on Garth's post, but I just wanted to tell you one thing.

Be careful not to confuse the underpainting with the beginning of any painting.

Like many other painters, I am very disturbed by the whiteness of the canvas, and for me normally the first step is to cover it with large areas of flat diluted colour that will also help me to establish the composition.

These masses will be completely covered by thicker paint, they might end up being totally different in hue, tone or size once the painting is completed. They are just a preliminary stage. The underpainting instead is there to stay; I would say it's like splitting up the task, first taking care of the tone, then of the colour itself. It is a discipline.

For me this painting is an experiment, I am not sure I am ready to give up a more intuitive approach, a little improvisation and the surprise a bold brushstroke might bring, but I want to have a go, since there are such masters over here

Ilaria

Thank you for your input Scott and Illaria. I am paying attention, ready to learn!

Pat (Joyce is my last name, easy to confuse ;) )

Pat: I was in a hurry yesterday and got your name wrong. My apologies.

Ilaria: My portraits rely on the strength of a burnt umber under drawing. When transparent white like zinc white is painted over dry, dark burnt umber, namely the shadow areas, the effect is a bluish color. Later when it

Wow
 

Scott,
these are real secrets, you should pasword this thread!
Thank you again, I just put down a green plain background , let's see what happens.
Ilaria

Pat, sorry I just copied from Scott...

Hi Ilaria,

This is a lovely start and I'm watching this thread carefully to see how you're developing the painting.

I have to ask you, what is the ground for your painting? Wood? Do you coat it with a layer of varnish?

Hi Ilaria,

I think you have a strong start on this painting as well. Like Linda, I also am watching how you develop this (I should also benefit from Scott's secret knowledge as well). I also am currently attempting a variation upon underpainting, but with a mixed and awkward start (and I may revert to my default impasto alla-prima approach at any moment!). I also quickly covered all that blinding white of the canvas with a color (but now I want to cover all that color too). Thanks for sharing this; I look forward to future developments.

Linda, this is just my guess, looking at the photo above: I bet Ilaria has a ground of raw umber or "wood" colored paint over a white ground on canvas, but my first impression was also that this is a wood panel. Is this on linen?

Garth

Canvas
 

Linda, Garth,
I painted on a linen canvas to which I applied a couple of coats of acrylic gesso, sanded to make it smooth.
I toned it with raew umber diluted with spirits of turpentine.
I am still at the underpainting stage, the paint on the face actually got very thick with all the corrections, I hope I'll be able to master it !
I'll post another photo as soon as I'll make some progress!
Thank you for encouraging !
Ilaria

Started glazing
 

Here I am again, I started glazing a couple of days ago, even if I didn't solve the trousers problem yet.
The skin of the boy looks dramatically pale, and despite my initial reference was Bronzino, here posted, I will have to do something about it.
Another problem is that the boy is so beautiful he looks very feminine, again not different from a Bronzino's painting but maybe not right in this case.


What I intend to do next, is concentrating on trying to get the shadow to render the roundness, as I find the face rather flat. I think that this technique can enhance the perfection in a face, the geometry, the purity of the egg shape, and it might require that I sacrifice some of the likeness to achieve this.

Scott, yes, do you think I will end up with a lot of browns?. Maybe my darks in the underpainting were not dark enough. What colours can I use in the shadows? And then the hair: i normally don't paint them 'one by one', but I am afraid this time I might have to. I have problems as I normally do them in a very loose way and the tips look very rigid. Any suggestion?
I think I will keep the green background (Bronzino again), the cushion will be venetian red,the sofa a little more ochre, the trousers dark khaki maybe.
Ilaria

PS Incidentally, thank you for suggesting that I use permanent rose W&N: what a fantastic colour that is. I had it in my open studio class and my teacher showed me how to mix it, it's fantastic and it immediately found his place in my palette! When I asked him why nobody at school ever mentioned it he answered: painters don't always like to reveal everything...

Dear Ilaria:

When I first saw your under painting I thought you could just get away with the light and shadow pattern of the boy's head. It appears while adding color, you flattened the head and lost much of that form.

What makes the Bronzino so solid is that strong core shadow and reflected light on the left side of her head. Also of importance is the value of the secondary shadow that runs along the right side of her head. These core shadows are essential to creating form and the reason all of the pros here are screaming about the importance of good reference photos containing these elements.

Speaking of which, could you post your reference photo. Perhaps after seeing it, I could suggest a possible solution. If you want to eventually glaze your flesh tones in the true sense, you've got to re-establish the shadows and get back the solidity you lost.

The W/N Permanent Rose sounds like an interesting color. Is it transparent?

Reference
 

Scott, thank you so much for your help!
I am in real trouble, I know, I think I will work on a safe ground and go opaque. How could I think could get it right at the first attempt?
Don't worry, your explanation was very clear but there are a lot of variables involved that are impossible to understand if you cannot phisically demonstrate. How transparent the glaze, how dark the darks, how to apply the glaze without streakes...

I will try to focus on the darks and lights, painting opaquely, trying to achieve the volume, and learn from my mistakes...
Michele, I didn't use it for glazing as it has such a strong tinting power.
I tried it opaque with ochre and viridian: very powerful combinations!
Here are the two photo I an working from
Ilaria

"My client likes Bronzino's portraits, and I am having fun trying to recapture that feeling in a more modern and relaxed pose."

If you are going to paint like Bronzino then you need to elongate his fingers. Realize that Bronzino was a Mannerist painter, and Mannerist painters are known for including elongated toes and fingers on their subjects. And I think that you should have left the boy in shorts.