How do you paint chains?

[Virgil Elliott]

Enzie,

What works for me is to lay in the whole shape with the darkest value and color, semitransparently, and then add opaque middletones into that while it's wet, and then the highlights with a more heavily-laden brush for some opaque impasto.

Then there is Rembrandt's trick of applying a textured underpainting of pale yellow impasto, letting it dry, and then glazing over it with transparent brown, then wiping it off the high spots with a rag. The most extreme example of this is the man's sleeve in the painting now called "The Jewish Bride," in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Rembrandt did this on quite a few other paintings as well, but with less drastic impasto in the underpainting.

Suggestion is more effective in creating a three-dimensional illusion of reality than too much detail. Apply details selectively, and simplify areas of less than primary importance, for the utmost in realistic appearance.

I remember you from my workshop in San Francisco a few years ago. Hello again.

Virgil Elliott

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Hi Virgil, I remember you too! It is very nice of you to take the time to share your technique here and it is greatly appreciated! It would be great if you could post an example of your work, so we can see how different techniques produce equally interesting results.

I found a wonderful detailed image of Rembrandt's "Jewish Bride" here

[Virgil Elliott]

[QUOTE=Enzie Shahmiri]Hi Virgil, I remember you too! It is very nice of you to take the time to share your technique here and it is greatly appreciated! It would be great if you could post an example of your work, so we can see how different techniques produce equally interesting results.

Enzie,

You'll find a few reproductions of my work, and quite a bit of this kind of information, in my book, which has just now hit the market. The title is "Traditional Oil Painting: Advanced Techniques and Concepts from the Renaissance to the Present" published by Watson-Guptill Publications. Some of my paintings printed too dark in the book, though I suppose most of them still look okay, more or less. But the Old Master paintings, of which there are many shown, all reproduced well.

You can get an idea what some of my paintings look like by taking a look at my web site, http://www.virgilelliott.com

It's good to talk to you again.

Virgil

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Congratulations on the new book! May you have great sales!