Underpainting example

[Karin Wells]

Here is that particular stage that I was referring to.

It should be pretty clear that the light on the dog and the general background are the same color and value. There is a darkish area at the top of the canvas that I presume is a shadow cast by the "gripper" that holds my canvas on the easel.

I began by painting the canvas all one color (value #3). Covering the stark white of a canvas with a darker color is called an imprimatura. When this imprimatura was dry, I lightly sketched in the dog with a brush dipped in a darker paint, and then I began to differentiate the light and shadow on the dog.

Perhaps some of your confusion may be that you discern a slight "color or value" difference in the photo. The wet paint on the lighted areas of the dog photographed a little differently from the dry areas in the background, but they are not different.

I hope that this clarifys the process a bit for you. This was originally meant to be simple.