Underpainting - Trying it out

[Karin Wells]

OK, it's time to get radical. I took the liberty of altering your painting to show you the following:

Flatten your lights.

Flatten your shadows and lose some edges.

Ignore reflected light at this stage.

Massing areas of dark and light will help to establish a strong composition and help to unify your finished painting. This first stage can look very "poster-like." All the "painterly" stuff should be saved for the upper layers of color.

At this first stage, pay the utmost attention only to where and exactly how the light meets the shadow (halftone).

Each and every object in a painting has a light and shadow -- only these two extremes of value -- and the range in between where the two meet.

This is the stage where you make or break your composition because it is so easy to see mistakes in an "abstract" form. This abstraction is the solid base upon which you will build "reality."

Once the halftone (light meets shadow) is correct, let it dry and then you can begin to model the form and finish the underpainting with more detail.

Your mistake thus far has been to jump into detail too soon (i.e., eyes, highlights, accents and so on). The really hard work is the halftone.

Because I am not particularly good in Photoshop, I have been unable to show you here how exact this halftone needs to be. You must force yourself to eliminate the superficial details within light and shadow and concentrate on establishing this halftone first.

[Karin Wells]

I am so glad to see that you got it - whew! It has taken me a couple of days to figure out how to explain this and be as clear as possible. You have made it worth my efforts and now I have something else to celebrate this Thanksgiving.

Thanks, and a happy Thanksgiving to you too Clive.

[Karin Wells]

The primary use of glazing in the past was to be able to create more intense (chromatic) colors due to the unavailability of a wide range of pigments, such as those available today.

Marvin, I think that when you compare the colors produced by glazing to modern opaque pigment, it is sort of like comparing the color of stained glass to construction paper.

I don't think that the glowing effects you speak of have very much to do with glazing.

And I think that glazing (and scumbling) has everything to do with the luminosity and that "glowing effect" that I get in my work. I am also sure that there are other valid ways of "getting that glow" but so far, they haven't worked for me.

[quote]I just wanted to make an additional point about under painting and the relative thickness of the paint. Karin

[Steven Sweeney]

The light-bulb has just come on.

Clive,

I wish I could properly attribute this recently-read comment, but the paraphrase would be "You can understand everything you need to know about painting in one day. Unfortunately, you don't know when that day will come along, so until then you just have to keep working at it."

[Steven Sweeney]

Lon,

You may want to check with Billing -- it sounds like your SOG membership dues might be in arrears.

No, actually, the red and white "X"s belong there. They're a lot harder to paint than you'd think -- you'd should have seen what they went through with the underpaintings alone.

No, actually, if you refresh your web page, that usually takes care of it.

[Steven Sweeney]

Karin Wells, in the course of a very generous and informative demo (time well spent and worthy, practical information offered in such depth as is rarely given by many other professionals here), repeatedly noted that she was demonstrating her own technique. She wasn't sitting in judgment of every other possible way to proceed, nor trying to freeze anyone into inaction because there were just too many possible ways to proceed, nor spitting in the face of any other artist for dull sport. She said she's tried other methods, but hasn't had luck with them. At least she's been open to the exploration of other methods. Characteristically, she didn't go on to say that those other methods must therefore be the flawed pursuits of idiots, or the stuff merely of someone's temperament. In not a huge amount more time than some of us have been reading Forum posts, Karin has used the insights of her "temperament" to garner awards and accolades that most of us wait until late in our careers to even wish for.

I don't happen to paint using an indirect method. In fact, Clive asked for comment from me and I had to admit to him that for the information he was seeking, his best source on Forum was Karin, and I suggested that he watch and learn. If another artist had advices other than those being demonstrated, he or she might have with a display of integrity taken on some of the tutorial, instead of sitting back and waiting for the work to be done by someone else and then taking shots at it.

Clive did watch and learn, and he's expressed his gratitude and has already told Karin, his able and generous teacher, how much he'd learned from her. Many other members absolutely reveled in the lesson and in the privilege of watching it develop.

That was a tremendous gift, with no self-serving or pontifical intent whatsoever, and I add my commendation to Karin for it. It was a highlight in the Forum, and those posts were burning up the printers at members' homes, I can assure you

As for the rest of it, I think the members of the Forum can sort that out for themselves.

[Mike McCarty]

Oh, I've got that old 'Mike McCarty Feeling'

Didn't Perry Como do that? Not to worry, you are in the very finest of hands.

[Jeanine Jackson]

This is going to be a wonderful portrait! I am amazed at the small size.

It is also a wonderfully informative thread. Where is Karin's demonstration that so inspired this classic approach?

[Jeanine Jackson]

I can see all images except Karin's last. I would love to see what she did to the excellent second attempt.

[Lon Haverly]

Am I the only one who cannot see the images posted above? There are only two little red x's. They are rather perfectly painted, if they indeed are painted.