Joan,

There is an interesting discussion going on in this thread regarding underpaintings and related topics.

Thank you, Mike
 

Thank you Mike, I did see that thread yesterday morning when I did my search. I read the whole thing and the info about backgrounds was helpful, but I find I am looking for some specific advice on:

1. glazing fleshtones using zinc white (I believe this would be a scumble) vs. glazing using only translucent glazes. That is my dilemma.

2. And just how dark the underpainting should be. I have some experimenting to do ahead of me. I did not make it darker than 50/50 mix of titanium white and raw umber on the face.

Thank you for taking the time to reply, I'm glad somebody out there is going through the posts and generously taking time to reply. It really is so generous of everyone to give up even a few minutes of their time to post advice to help someone else. I appreciate it tremendously.

Joan

Minh- I scumbled over most of the areas. I never used staright white. I used appropriate values and hues for each area, basically an average of the particular area. In the shadow areas I scumbled in some of the background color. Again this is to unify and set things up for further paint applications.

Lisa- You should take a 6 day workshop. Last year I had two people drive to North Carolina from Cincinnati OH. A really good "Ah Hah!" is well worth the trip. People were Ah Hahing left and right. Or perhaps they were just gasping for air from laughing so much?