Chase & Payton - The Underpainting

[Michael Georges]

This is a follow-on to my posting of the charcoal value study for this portrait.

Here is the completed underpainting:

http://www.fineportraitsinoil.com/Ch...nished_400.jpg

And some detail:

http://www.fineportraitsinoil.com/Ch...-Detail300.jpg
Chase

http://www.fineportraitsinoil.com/Pa...-Detail300.jpg

I will also post the final painting.

[Mike McCarty]

What were your colors for this underpainting, Michael?

[Michael Georges]

Mike:

I used a verdaccio formula of Flake White, Mars Black and Chromium Oxide Green. I mix them into nine values from dark to light and bracket them with Mars Black and Flake White giving me 11 tonal values from black to white.

For those who might not know, verdaccio is a form of underpainting used since the mid 1300s - primarily by the Italians. The term Verdaccio is Italian for "Greenish-first." Cennini mentions mixing a verdaccio for frescos in his book "Il Libro Dell'Arte" written around 1437ish. Cennini describes mixing powdered pigments of Yellow Ochre, Black, White, and Sinopia or Cinnabresse (Red like Venetian Red to dull the green).

The imposition of warm flesh tones on the cool gray-green really creates a very vibrant and realistic flesh tone.

[Karin Wells]

Nice work. I look forward to seeing the finished piece. Size?

[Alicia Kornick]

Very beautiful, Michael.

I used the verdaccio on my last painting. I was using tones of gray gesso, but I like this much better. The gesso was very hard to blend. Don't know how this affects the final portrait though. I think once you put opaque paint over it, it's gone.

[Michael Georges]

Thanks for the comments, all.

Karin, it is 20" x 24" inches.

Alicia, actually, I won't completely cover the underpainting, and even when you do cover it, the undertones will still influence the top layers of color. The verdaccio will show through in the flesh tones where I will leave small areas of it exposed where appropriate - the midtone between a highlight and a shadow, the hollows of the eyes, the shadow of the neck, etc. As I will do some of the work with glazes, the underpainting will actually provide the detail as the glazes will go on like thin panes of colored glass with the underpainting showing through and providing the form.

I think that gesso tints would indeed be much harder to use as they dry way to fast for any real blending.

[Tito Champena]

Beautiful underpainting. What color glazes are you going to use for the flesh parts?

[Michael Georges]

Beautiful underpainting, what color glazes are you going to use for the flesh parts?

Hello Tito, thanks for your post.

Glazing is typically done for two reasons: 1) You want to alter the color or effect of a certain passage, or 2) You want to glaze an area and let your underpainting show through. Most people use glazes for the first reason - to alter the appearance of a particular passage or achieve an effect. I glaze for both reasons, but I don't glaze flesh. Glazing tends to be most successful when it is done in transparent or semi-transparent passages. Often dark transparent colors are the best for glazing.

I paint flesh opaquely and quite thin. As most flesh tones contain some sort of white, the effects I get when I have tried glazing with it are to say the least, not quite nice. I believe that flesh requires a solidity that glazing does not give me. I do know that others do glaze flesh, but it doesn't work well for me.

So on this painting, I may glaze the background, the older girl's hair and possibly passages of the dresses, the rest I will paint opaquely.

Hope that helps!

[Tito Champena]

Thank you for your explanation, and I agree that you can't glaze with thick opaque pigment.

Do you know how Bourgereau, Jaques Louis David and Ingres painted the flesh?

[Tammy Nielsen]

Lovely Michael, and great baby teeth!