Hi!
This is a really fantastic topic -- a "hyper" thread. Like a blue sky without clouds (though there are a few, still.)
I, too, understand it, at last. I make almost everything wrong. I misunderstood the whole material, better said in my books, what I have haven't explained correctly.
Quotation from the book:
Quote:
The basic idea behind this technique is that color and form are kept separate. Composition and volumetric form are established in a monochromatic underpainting, or grisaille, and color added in transparent washes or glazes. The preliminary drawing may be as loose and flexible as any action painting, but the point is to establish the framework for a very clear underpainting. If the grisaille more or less expresses what you want to say, then all else, especially the color, will automatically fall into place. With that in mind, it's easy to see why in the past so much emphasis was placed on solid drawing techniques. In one very real sense, glazed paintings can be considered colored drawings.
Basically, it means that instead of mixing two colors directly to create a third, you instead layer one over the other separately, treating each like a piece of colored glass. In each case, the resulting third color has the same final hue identity, but not the same visual effect. The glazed one will appear to have more depth, more of a glow than a mixed one. The glazed color seems to reflect light, while the mixed one appears to absorb it.
(Note: Everyone can confirm this "glowing" in a museum (but you can't photograph it!). I think it is a physical process of multiple lights breaking through multi-layered transparent materials. Therefore I do not understand completely what Marvin Mattelson (a high quality artist, too) says --in the topic, "'Direct painting versus glazing' -- "Today we have a vast array of pigments available so glazing is not needed nearly as much.")
Light-value underpaintings give the best results. In fact, the closer to white they are, the better, because each glaze will darken the overall tonal values.
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I think, it is not soooo wrong, but tells nothing about halftones, lost edges, flat shadows, no highlights. etc., all of which seem to be very important, so that one can continue in both directions (lights and darks).
Thank you, Clive, for posing the questions here. Thank you very much for your free online lessons, Karin Wells! A book or online demo is a very good idea (processing from start to end).
I still think I have more courage than talent.
P.S. I'm so angry, I lost $XXX spent on other books.