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Originally Posted by Paul Foxton
I find that white is too opaque and spoils the translucency, if I need to lighten a shadow I wipe off some paint with my finger to let more ground show through.
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What whites do you use, Paul? Titanium is certainly opaque, and altering the tonality of colors mixed with it, is responsible for the "chalky" look of some amateur paintings. Flake white is truly the "Secret of the Old Masters" and is relatively transparent. Zinc white has a cool caste, and is perhaps a bit more transparent than flake white, but offers none of the wonderful possibilities in handling of lead white (including impasto effects under glazing).
It's interesting how "glazing" as you described, over the ground or an underpainted passage, results in a color value much "warmer" than the same color brought to that same lighter value by adding white.
Reading through this thread, it seems we could benefit from "standard" definitions of the terms we use. Alla prima is used interchangeably to describe painting to completion within a single sitting (a primer coup) as well as painting wet-in-wet through an extended period as Michele describes. This as opposed to using a "planned" layered approach, where underpainted passages may not show what "local color" a passage will be when over-painted, glazed and completed.
"Lead gesso" is a misnomer probably originating in the use of "acrylic gessos" for priming raw canvas, which has become widespread the last 40 years or so. "Gesso" has thus become synonymous with "primer" or "ground"
"Real gesso" is compounded with hide glue, gypsum and whiting. A brittle material, it's great for panels, completely inappropriate on a stretched canvas. Acrylic "gesso" is acrylic co-polymer and "marble dust" (aka whiting), but a lead ground is
not gesso, and remains the best priming for stretched canvases in my opinion.