Painting light to dark

[Janel Maples]

Is anyone familiar with a method of painting that goes from light to dark?

Am I a backward case? I assume there is a very good reason why most artists advocate painting from dark to light. Unfortunately, my trial and error method of learning has not taught me why this is so.

Thanks in advance for any information.

[Steven Sweeney]

Nature abhors a vacuum, goes the axiom, so I

[Marvin Mattelson]

My approach to getting a strong tonal structure is based on the fact that everything is relative to everything else. A middle gray on a white canvas appears to be dark while the same value on a black canvas looks light.

In watercolor or pen and ink the white of your paper is a given so you proceed down from there, value wise. In oils painting you are building both ways, adding both black and white.

I advocate using a monochromatic underpainting, called a wash-in, done in raw umber. The canvas serves as the white, so when your painting is complete, the light passes through the upper layers of color and reflects back through. The darks are already established in the wash-in, so it doesn't take many layers to build those up. Being that most dark pigments are transparent this can be an issue.

I start my underpainting with a medium to dark tone on the canvas, which I match to the shadow value of the model. I proceed to wipe out the lights and brush in the darks. This way I have a much easier time seeing the proper relationships. When I lay in my colors I start with the largest areas and proceed to the smallest, since the area surrounding a color determines it's final appearance.

I think working large to small is far more important than working dark to light or whatever. Once the tonal and color structures are established I can go in and refine things to my heart's content.

On my website you can see a demo of the wash-in and lay-in from my Atlanta 2003 workshop. http://www.fineartportrait.com/workshop_demo.html This is far from finished, by my standards but gives a good idea of my approach.

[Chris Saper]

HI Janel,

I am not sure your question relates to the layering of the painting from light to dark, its sequencing or both.

With regard to the layering, I think the medium drives most of those decisions. Watercolor, as described, needs to be layered from light to dark. For most painters that will also dictate the sequence with which one lays in color, but not necessarily so.

When working with pastels, it just takes much less effort to drag a light color over a dark than vice versa. In some cases, for example if the tooth is filled with light color, it can be virtually impossible to completely override the lights with subsequent layers of darks.

With oil I think that the layering of darks and lights depnds on several things. First whether you are an alla prima painter, in which case it is much harder to cover light areas with darks ( if not impossible) . Sometimes the layers simply need to dry completely, one at a time. The second factor I think has to do with whether you use Titanium (opaque) or for example Flake(transparent) whites in mixing your light tones.

The sequencing of light and darks is a different question: more than one school of thought, and all equally passionate. I have seen many oil painters begin with the middle tones, whether in toning the canvas or directly painting. I have also seen painters who immediately declare value "bookends" and work toward the middle values from each direction. They can both result in beautiful paintings.

In pastel work, painters commonly use a prepared ground in a middle value, in order to judge the relative lightness and darkness of colors they put on the surface. They might buy prepared colored surfaces, or create their own.

Watercolorists have no choice but to work on white, unless they will be mixing media, such as is frequently seen in watercolor/guache, where an opaque paint is used to restate light areas over already-colored parts of the picture.

[Michele Rushworth]

Until recently I didn't have a plan as to what values to paint first in my oils. (As for watercolor, I'd lay in the darkest darks first, to set that as a benchmark --backwards I guess, but it worked for me.)

Since taking a workshop with Tony Ryder I've been disciplining myself to work from dark to light. When modeling a form I also concentrate on not moving up into the light too quickly, that is, to keep my midtones dark enough. This approach has resulted in what I feel is a greater sense of volume and depth in my work, partly because the darks are dark enough from the get go.

In my former method, everything ended up in the mushy middle and I had to repaint areas multiple times to get the darks dark enough.

[Janel Maples]

To everyone who contributed,

Thank you for your input and a special thank you to Steven for playing Mother Nature to get the ball rolling for me.

If I had to choose a cartoon character that best describes myself I would pick Curious George.....ette? I am a very curious person, and I want to know why it (painting dark to light) is the procedure of choice for many oil painters.

I am eager to have what consistently works for me make an appearance. I know my own style and procedure is in me somewhere; I just haven't found it, yet. So right now, I am all over the map (or should I say canvas?)

My question was one about sequencing rather than layering of paint. I apologize for not making that clear and for not making it clear that oil painting was the medium I was directing the question toward.

A little light bulb did go on. Bouncing back and forth, painting in both directions, may be the procedure I've been looking for to successfully fine tune things. Sometimes I forget that these things aren't carved in stone.

Time will tell what is right for me. If not, I am sure the pro's will in the critique section.

Thanks again for the information.