Staining your canvas . . . what do you use
 

What do you use for staining your canvas before you begin to paint . . . warm colors or cool colors.

I ask because I'm always torn -- not whether to stain -- but what to use.

Chris Saper says in her book that she uses a green earth. Bill Whittaker uses a mix of raw umber and ultramarine blue. John Howard Sanden seems to start on a white, untoned canvas. I've seen Daniel E. Greene use several tones, one being a mix of mostly ivory black and Prussian blue, and the other a warmish raw umber sort of thing.

And, what do you think this does for the way you approach, or do your painting. I mean, I've heard that the initial tone you put on your canvas has "an enormous effect on your portrait," according to Dan Greene.

I would like to hear your thoughts.

I work on white canvas. I work thinly and many parts of my canvas have just one layer on them, especially the face. I don't want a toned ground affecting the colors I lay down, or showing through more in later years as the paint becomes more transparent over time.

I tone my canvasses according to the completion of my client.
I'm testing now Nelson Shanks' hints on preparing the canvasses for the portrait, I'm using a coat of acrylic paint before applying the oils.
visit http://www.studioincamminati.org/ see the supply list. It's being an interesting experience. But I also like the ultramarine mixed with raw umber.

I have also used a raw umber wash or a transparent black wash, which I learned from Bill Whitaker.

I like the cool gray tone for subjects lit with a cool north light (or equivalent). I prefer not to work on white canvas because it is too difficult for me to judge values against the white ground.

Although I generally use a wash made from OMS, for slicker surfaces(e.g., New Traditions L-600 which is REALLY smooth, or ABS plastic) I thin the paint with www.studioproducts.com Underpainting medium. It dries very quickly and leaves a matte, slightly toothy surface so the first coat of paint I apply sticks more easily.

For toning the canvas, I use a mixture of ivory black, burnt umber and white. And lots of solvent. First I brush it on, then I take a paper towel and wipe it on with circular strokes to even out the surface. Even with the white it still dries fast, and the addition of white gives it a slightly smoother surface (though matte) that makes the paint glide on.

Sometimes I vary the color, mixing ultramarine blue and burnt umber, or ultramarine and burnt sienna. Sometimes I use complementary colors mixed with some white. My goal is to make a neutral color that is equivalent to a light midtone.

And sometimes I'm in such a rush of excitement to get started that I don't tone the canvas! In the end, I can't tell the difference!

Alex

Although I enjoy working on a toned surface I'm concerned how my paintings would look in years to come when the paint has become more transparent. I wouldn't want them to lose whatever color and brightness they have because the toned ground started to influence the upper colors more, especially in thinly painted areas with only one or two layers, like the face. Because of that concern I now work on a white canvas. Is this something you wonder about also?

I'm glad you brought that up, Michele. It is important to think about the future, and I am usually so enthusiastic about painting now that I forget to consider what might happen down the road.

I tend to put a lot of paint on the light areas, less in the midtones, and even less in the shadows. Since my ground is a midtone, would it be bad if the color on top thinned or lost color so that the ground showed through more? Same with the shadows. On the other hand, what if you don't tone the canvas. Would the white show through, and is that what we would prefer?

The other thing I am wondering about is whether the colors in the toning mixture would be fading at the same rate as the top layers of paint. This would certainly occur if I mixed a ground color from the dominant shadow color in my painting and its complement, thus making a neutral. Then the same pigments would be in the ground and in the painting.

Gosh, Michele, I never thought about any of this until you brought it up! Is there anyone out there who KNOWS?

Alex

Yes, this thinning of paint over time is well known. A painting by Valesquez (sp) called the Water Seller comes to mind, as well as a couple i've seen in museums. I'm sure there are bunches more where an under painting is peeking through.

But, you gotta consider that there are also museums full of paintings where this isn't apparent, and a goodly number of these paintings are by artists known to do all sorts of thing on the under layers.

My thought is that many things are at work in these paintings with ghosts. For example, Valesquez seems to have painted thinly his correction of the Water Seller's collar, so "thin painting" could be one of the culprits.

I have seen that painting, as well as others by Velasquez, where corrections become visible. But that has nothing to do with the under paint, as Richard correctly states, but thin, faster drying paint upon impasto details, like a leg that had to be moved, or a gun that was too long.

When we plan our works carefully so that we don

Interesting, that's where my paintings are thicker.

Claudimir,

In the book, "John Singer Sargent", by Carter Ratcliff, (Abbeville Press) it says " the places of masses were indicated with a rigger dipped in a flowing pigment. No preparation in colour was allowed, but the main planes of the face must be laid directly on the unprepared canvas with a broad brush." This book is available on this site.

I tone my canvasses based on my color theme, if it is to be a green theme, I tone it green, a yellow theme, yellow, etc.

After talking to Micheal Harding, the paint maker, I will not use any kind of acrylic under-painting, not even Liquin or Galkyd, or acrylic gessoed canvasses.

Alexandra,

Good pigments as a rule should not fade, alizarin, one of my favorites does. Vermilion can blacken when exposed to sulphuric acid, a by product of the use of coal heat.

All oil paints will in time yellow and get more transparent.

A recent article in "The American Scientist" shows the results of the pigment change in Seurat's "Le Grande Jatte" to be a decided shift to yellow.

Allan,

In another book on Sargent, he used thickly painted darks.

What did he say would happen if an artist uses canvases that are gessoed with acrylic? (I sometimes use them for my non-portrait work.)

[quote]Good pigments as a rule should not fade, alizarin, one of my favorites does. [/quote}You might want to check out Gamblin's Permanent Alizarin. Richard Schmidt, among others, seem to feel it is truly permanent.

Sharon,

In the notes on Sargent's technique, a student of him, Miss. Heyneman, tells that he would brush in the general tone with paint diluted in turps. After then he used the paint mostly undiluted.

You are right that he painted all effects with opaque paint. He said that if we would paint something transparent, it should not be done with transparent paint, but in the right mixture of color, in opaque paint.

He also would wipe out a face or hand and start over at the next sitting if he was not satisfied with the result. That would leave several layers of skin color I guess.

Allan

The acrylic gesso that I have used for priming canvas lately dries up matte and very absorbent. I don

Michele,

He said not to use them, I have notes, I will see if I can find them.

His knowledge is quite encyclopedic and my poor brain could not quite contain the amount of information he delved out.

He went into the types of canvas, the weave, twill or regular and what effect where the flax was grown to the quality of its' use as a paint surface.

I did a bit of research last spring and I was disappointed in the lack of good painting surfaces. One reason lead gessoing is so desirable is its' flexibilty and durability. Unfortunately good prepared lead gessoed canvas is rare. But this is going beyond the purview of this thread.

As to alizarin, I am wary of using Gamblin as they use an alkali refined linseed oil as opposed to a cold-pressed linseed oil more common in European oil paint manufacture. According to Ralph Mayer, cold pressed is more durable and it does not have a suede effect. That is when a paint color changes as a result of the direction of a paint stroke.

Sharon, thanks for sharing that! I've noticed that effect occasionally, but didn't realize the type of oil was the cause or that some brands of paint might behave differently. Is there a particular brand you favor that doesn't produce a 'sueded' effect?

Terry,

Yes, Blockx and Micheal Harding.

You could also try this trick I learned on a Daniel Greene tape. When the paint is still quite wet run a soft fan brush gently across the surace in one direction without destroying the strokes.

That is interesting because I have also heard that liquin is not a good substance to use. However, I know someone taking classes and her instructor uses a method of layering that involves applying a liquin glaze over each layer of dried paint before applying the next coat. Her paintings are smooth and beautiful with a lovely reflective shine to them. I would be interested to know what is going to happen to them in the future.

Dianne

I find it interesting that Sargent used thick paint for darks. Lately I've been experimenting with a method of building up paintings based mostly on some reading I've been doing about Rubens's technique, at least what the author assumed his technique was:

He contends that Rubens used a grey ground, in which he left texture from the brush strokes visible. He would then build up shadow areas with brown transparent glazes, which would allow the brush strokes of the ground to show through the glazes in shadow areas to give the shadows variation and life. The light reflecting off the ground behind the glazes would give the shadows depth. Apparently Rembrandt's way of handling shadows and lights was similar, but with a slower, more methodical approach and much thicker impastos for light areas with the colour applied over them in glazes.

I work alla prima, so don't build up successive glazes, but based on the above have been trying out a similar approach:

First the support is covered with a couple of coats of Roberson's acrylic gesso, with a big brush to leave brush strokes standing proud. Then, when dry, the gesso is sanded back a bit but still with some texture from the brush strokes left. I then apply a mix of ultramarine and burnt sienna in fast drying alkyd, rubbing it with a cloth rather than painting it. This brings up the texture of the brush strokes in the ground.

Next stage is to lay in the shadows with a mixture of burnt sienna and ultramarine, laid in quite thin but with quite a high percentage of whatever medium I'm using - lately I've been favouring Roberson's maroger. These shadow areas are kind of scumbled in, letting the mix shift more to ultramarine or sienna depending on whether the shadow area looks warmer or cooler. This isn't strictly a tonal underpainting, since tone supplied by local colour is ignored, I only paint the shadows at this point.

Once this is done, I start laying in colour on the areas in full light with thicker, opaque paint, followed by dragging some colour into the shadow gazes where it's needed, i.e. where I can see some colour in the shadow. Throughout I'm trying to match the colours I see as closely as I possibly can.

So far I'm finding that this method gives me a stronger impression of light in the painting, with the opaque areas with full light falling on them coming forward, set off by warm, soft shadows. I'm pretty happy with the way the experiments are going so far, but I've also found that it's easy to overdo the texture in the ground. On a recent small painting of a bottle and a lemon, the bottle was painted with very thin paint in this way, and it did give some impression of the transparency of the glass, against the thicker opaque paint of the highlights on the lemon. Far be it from me to argue with Sargent of course, I'm just describing a different approach to shadows and transparency which seems to be working for me so far.

I've yet to try this on a portrait though, I'm not painting portraits yet. The above is a very crude version of what I've read about Rubens's technique, applied to small still life paintings on MDF, (Medium Density Fibre Board - I don't know what the name for it is in the US.)

Sharon, you've got me worried with what Michael Harding's been saying to you about acrylic gesso and alkyd based under painting. I recently switched to using his paints on your recommendation, and I'm very impressed with them. This man really knows his stuff. I too would very much appreciate a bit more information on that if you can find it. No problem if you can't though, I can drop him a line myself.

Sorry for the long post. This thread has got me exited!

Paul:

Interesting about how you texture your mdf.

For the last couple of years, I've been doing a seires of little oil sketches of local kids that I sketch at the local library. I go there twice a week and do free pencil sketches. It costs less than hiring a model, and is more taxing but more "learning-ful" because you have to get on with it and do it in about five minutes or the kids will fall asleep or get restless and lose pose. When I find an interesting face, I grab a shot with my digital camera, and from that, I'll do a 12X16 oil sketch on mdf which the library puts up in my "library kids" section.

But, my point is, I've been experimenting with texturing the surfaces of these little boards. I use an old wall paper paste brush, an old and well worn hand held whisk broom, wadded up newspaper for pressing down into the thick gesso, or the same thing with a balled up wad of plastic Saran wrap.

The point is, I keep fiddling, looking for odd ways to texture the gesso, which, as you know by now, sometimes makes for a very interesting painting surface.

I don't do this for more serious portrait work. I don't now why. Not sure "they" would understand.

But, it's fun to texture the stuff and see what happens in/on the painting surface.

It certainly does, sometimes a bit too interesting! In the Lemon and Bottle painting I think overdid it.

One thing that strikes me about this is that it would be very nice to be able to apply texture to the ground depending on the subject, or perhaps the desired feel, of the painting. But since the panels need preparing ahead of time and the ground needs to be dry, it would perhaps take some of the spontanaiety out the painting.

By the way Richard, I love your idea of painting kids in the local library. Their parents must love you.

P.S. I'd love to see some of those oil sketches, if you have any pics.

Paul, thanks for that detailed and interesting post about transparency in shadow areas. I've never read such a thorough explanation before. I've always painted alla prima and have never tried it before. Maybe I'll try a little still life painting, as you did, to see how I like it.

Thanks Michele, I'm glad you found it interesting. Actually I'm just glad you made it through the post!

I'm really hoping that we both mean something slightly different by "alla prima." Please don't tell me you do those beautiful, highly finished portraits in one sitting, or I'm about ready to give up altogether. Perhaps you just don't sleep for days on end until you've finished? ;)

I'm guessing that you are referring to painting wet into wet - pretty much the same thing I guess in terms of technique.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I have a 'no white paint in shadows' rule at the moment, although I confess I do break it sometimes. I find that white is too opaque and spoils the translucency, if I need to lighten a shadow I wipe off some paint with my finger to let more ground show through.

I think alla prima means a lot of different things to different people, and no, I don't paint my portraits in one sitting (I wish!) They take me about a month each, on average.

What I mean is that I don't use transparent glazes and I try to lay down only one opaque layer on a given part of the painting. Doesn't always work out that way and some areas have three, four or five layers until I get them right, but I don't do layered glazes intentionally.

What whites do you use, Paul? Titanium is certainly opaque, and altering the tonality of colors mixed with it, is responsible for the "chalky" look of some amateur paintings. Flake white is truly the "Secret of the Old Masters" and is relatively transparent. Zinc white has a cool caste, and is perhaps a bit more transparent than flake white, but offers none of the wonderful possibilities in handling of lead white (including impasto effects under glazing).

It's interesting how "glazing" as you described, over the ground or an underpainted passage, results in a color value much "warmer" than the same color brought to that same lighter value by adding white.

Reading through this thread, it seems we could benefit from "standard" definitions of the terms we use. Alla prima is used interchangeably to describe painting to completion within a single sitting (a primer coup) as well as painting wet-in-wet through an extended period as Michele describes. This as opposed to using a "planned" layered approach, where underpainted passages may not show what "local color" a passage will be when over-painted, glazed and completed.

"Lead gesso" is a misnomer probably originating in the use of "acrylic gessos" for priming raw canvas, which has become widespread the last 40 years or so. "Gesso" has thus become synonymous with "primer" or "ground"

"Real gesso" is compounded with hide glue, gypsum and whiting. A brittle material, it's great for panels, completely inappropriate on a stretched canvas. Acrylic "gesso" is acrylic co-polymer and "marble dust" (aka whiting), but a lead ground is not gesso, and remains the best priming for stretched canvases in my opinion.

I think the thread is veering off course a bit now, which I'm responsible for, so I'll be brief:

Richard, I use flake white almost exclusively now, occasionally titanium but usually on it's own when I want a bright opaque white. For shadows, I currently try to keep anything remotely opaque out of them as much as I can, including cadmiums.

Yes, acrylic gesso isn't really gesso, but nonetheless that's what Robersons call it. To be fair to them, they put the word "gesso" in quotation marks on the lable, I should have done the same. Interesting info there though, thanks.

I've just dug out a passage on the toning of grounds in "The Materials of the Artist and Their Use in Painting," written by Max Doerner, a professor in the Academy of the Finer Arts in Munich, first published in 1921. His comments touch on a lot which has been covered in this thread.

I'll post a few quotes which may be relevant here:

"The Gothic masters and those of the early Renaissance toned their white gypsum grounds with thin reddish or yellowish, also greenish coats of earth colours (so called imprimatura), which reduced the absorbent quality of the ground. They were also used as middle tones in the picture."

And on Rubens's technique:

"Rubens went over his dazzling white gypsum grounds, laid on wood, with a mixture of ground hard charcoal, some white colour, and some binding medium (probably glue). This coat was applied quickly with a sponge and had a striped silvery grey tone which gave to the subsequent thin coats of colour an unusually loose, pleasing, and live appearance. If a sponge or brush is passed back and forth over such a coat, the latter quickly dissolves, and the tone becomes uniformly grey and like an ordinary coat of paint. On the other hand, there are to be found solidly painted coats of grey ground on canvases by Rubens, Van Dyck, and many other masters."

Some general comments on toned grounds:

"This much may be said in a general way concerning the effects of coloured grounds upon a painting: white grounds permit the greatest degree of colourfulness-all colours look well on white. On the other hand, the proper relating of colours on a white ground is more difficult; the picture may easily become too cold and flat. The well-trained painter knows how to combat the danger of too high colouring through the proper and free use of cold, warm, and contrasting colour tones. It is possible to work both in glazes and opaquely on a white ground. On a toned ground only an opaque technique is possible, that is to say, the darker the ground the more opaque should be the technique. Through a semi-opaque technique which allows the ground to be active result the "optical greys" which were used by the old masters Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and many others. These greys have a more charming quality than painted greys."

Some more comments on how grounds effect the subsequent layers, specifically for portraiture:

"On light grey grounds, as on grey underpainting, the colour becomes more dull and earthy. This is desired by many painters and has a good effect in the painting of flesh, especially when the ground is used to help the effect. Grey-green tones of Veronese green earth are effective for flesh tones, as well as for the all pervading tone of the picture. On coloured grounds such as light ochre, or, for example, on red, the colour range of the picture is reduced, for the contrasting tones of blue or green are weakened or even broken; but the harmony of the picture as a whole is heightened."

"Umber grounds are not to be recommended; on umber all light colours change and become dark."

And a nice final quote:

"It is certain that all sorts of fine effects as yet unexploited may be achieved on coloured grounds."

The book can be found on Amazon here .

A-Yup. Doerner didn't mention Tiepolo's ochre grounds ? They're interesting to see in his small scale proposals, and they lent special verve to those "blue heaven" skies in his ceilings.

The interesting thing about toning a ground is that applied over an initial white base, the mechanics of reflection through transparent layers remains the same. There's no question it's much easier and pleasant to work on a toned ground than "stark white".

Unfortunately not. Tiepolo is one of my favourite painters, mainly for his colour - It was partly seeing his work in Venice that got me painting again :)

I prefer the white of the canvas as a starting point. I don't paint thin layers, but try to paint a face in one session. The thickness of the paint is mostly the same in the shadows, midtones as in the light areas. I like the white of the canvas because it corresponds with the white of my pallet, so I know the colors I mix will come out exactly the same on the canvas.