Grisaille question

[LynnDigby]

I'm working on a painting I was putting off (duty painting-birthday gift-not my kinda thing, etc.), and I decided I'd be more motivated by it if I could try something/ learn something new.

So, I decided to paint a grisaille, (or what I though that was) first. I transfered my drawing to a canvas primed and toned with a mid gray. I fixed it, not with an imprimatura layer (which I read about later) but with fixative.

I have spent the last 2 days painting what amounts to a grayscale image of the subject, finished in every aspect but chroma. This grayscale stuff rocks because I see value more easily than color. I sort of drew it first with black paint very thin, in the shadows, then built up the halftones and highlights with various shades of gray made with white and black. There are lumpy parts, because I am mostly an alla prima painter, and I don't think!! I am not going to scrape off anything.

I'll finish the grisaille today.

Then what? I'm reading conflicting advice. Do you glaze color over the underpainting? What do you mix for the glaze? What pigments work best?

Do you just find the correct color that matches the value of the underpainting and go in with opaques? I saw someone doing that, too.

My gut feeling is that the second method is more comfortable for me. and i know i won't be happy to smooth the heck out of every texture, either. I'll want some thicker lights that stay as brushstrokes laid.

So, if anyone has a link, or advice as to where to go next, I'd be very grateful.

If it would help for me to post the grisaille, I'll do so.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Lynn

[CareyG]

Hi Lynn.

Basically...the answer is, it's up to you. :) The reason you are reading conflicting advice is that there's really no one way to do it. (If you haven't seen the Oil Painting FAQ (http://wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=235455), there are some links about grisailles and glazing there.)

It actually sounds like what you have might be more of a "value map" than a usual grisaille. I say that because, if you glaze with transparent paint intending for some of the underpainting to show through, this will darken your image. Therefore, "normal" grisailles are actually lighter in value than where you want to end up (particularly in the shadows).

Usually glazing is done by very thin (physically thin) layers of transparent or semi-transparent paint. This allows your underpainting to show through (you will have a "tinted photograph" look until you get several layers down). You can also do this with more opaque paints so long as the layer is thin enough (again, physically thin as you don't want to add a *whole* lot of medium to your paint).

This doesn't mean that you have to glaze the whole thing, often glazing is only done in select passages, and often (because of the darkening of each layer of paint) highlights and such will be added with thicker opaque paint.

You do not need a fancy medium to glaze. (Things like resin are added to a medium if, for example, your paint is beading up on the surface and needs a little adhesion help.) Just adding a bit of oil should suffice for starters. (You might try putting the medium on the dry surface of where you intend to work, and painting into that...makes it easier not to over-dilute your paint, and the paint is easy to slide on.)

That's probably a lot of information to digest...but I hope it helps! Do have a look at some of the links in the FAQ.

~!Carey

[LynnDigby]

Thanks, Carey! I'll go and look at the FAQ page now.

I appreciate the help. It looks like there will be some overpainting of lights because I didn't lighten the 'value map.'

It's a learning curve!

[Ribera]

Lynn,
There is no one good way to create a painting.
If you view histories great works, they were hardly all done the same way, in fact, many of those artists could and did verbally disparage the means employed by other greats painting contemporaneously.

Yes, you can glaze colors over some areas, if you so please. Do be aware, many great painters never glazed at all, n' many earlier ones actually did so perpetually. Also, I don't believe any artist has ever executed an oil painting of all glazes. In a glaze, the glazed color is always darker. The lighter underpainting ought, hence, glow through that dark glaze, creating luminosity. In a glaze, that particular paint will require more oil, so mix up a fatter medium there. After some debate, it's been concluded most any color's adequate for a glaze, but the rule of thumb's been transparent or translucent colors cut the mustard.
It's a longstanding tradition to mass the lights in opaquely (lean), to contrast with the transparency of the typically glazed (fat) shadows/darks.
r.

[jmaris10]

Glazing can be so mistaken by people.

All it is, is a way to change the color of the layer beneath it. And most of the time, it is used as a starting layer and something else is painted into it.

Here is a good example I learned.

The old masters used to alternate cool and warm colors in layers.

Your grisaille acts as the first cool layer, the glaze that is applied to start the coloring acts as the warm layers, with the accents painted into this glaze acting as the cool layer over the glaze. If this layer dries and you need to adjust more things, the glaze would start the next layer acting as the warm layer and the accents into this act as the cool layer again.

A glaze can also be done with white added to the mixture too - known as a half-glaze.

A glaze is a great way to begin a new layer, by laying down a thin layer of color into which you paint again adding darker and lighter accents.

[LynnDigby]

Thank you Ribera and jmaris. I have never used glazes, or painted a grisaille or tone map myself, but decided to see how that would affect the use of color. I really am enjoying making the grayscale painting. I plan to finish it to a high degree of completion.

My usual style of paint application has a lot to do with:
1. Not knowing what I'm doing.
2. Wanting fast gratification, so working wet into wet, and even painting into wet underpainting is where my head is.
3. Enjoying the tactile and textural aspects of the paint itself. I don't like to over polish.

So, my idea was to pretty much paint the grisaille in the way I'd normally paint, with edges and textures as I would want them in the final work.....then glaze?

Since I painted the darks pretty dark, I'm thinking to tip about the 'half glaze might be a winner.

I am trying to learn different approaches and this seemed like one I wanted to try. I think I might have been more sensible to READ ABOUT IT FIRST. LOL

Thanks for the tips. I'll soldier on, and maybe post the thing is anyone is interested.

[Ribera]

Lynn,
Since you wrote that you'd painted the darks pretty dark, a glaze is ALWAYS darker than the tones beneath 'em. If you made the underpainting the correct final-value, you have pretty much lost the glaze's principal appeal, the lighter surface glowing through the dark veil, creating luminosity. If you're merely matching values, why not just paint with opaque colors?!
r.

[LynnDigby]

Lynn,
Since you wrote that you'd painted the darks pretty dark, a glaze is ALWAYS darker than the tones beneath 'em. If you made the underpainting the correct final-value, you have pretty much lost the glaze's principal appeal, the lighter surface glowing through the dark veil, creating luminosity. If you're merely matching values, why not just paint with opaque colors?!
r.

Well, I'm a newbie, relatively, to oils. So, I am flailing about trying stuff out, and trying to learn how to make the stuff I want to make. I realized early on that getting a good grasp of both technique and materials would be important, but the impulsive side of me wanted to make my work NOW.

There have been missteps.

The reason the grisaille appealed to me lay in the fact that I can see values. I always could. I'm pretty sure this doesn't make me unique. It just seemed like a really neat way in. If I could get the values nailed first, then the overpainting in color might be easier? I thought that because, as you know, the value structure and color structure of a painting are independent but related things. You can have a value shape of halftones move through a painting and in it, there will be a shift of both hue and chroma without losing the similarity of the values. I was particularly interested in this aspect, because my natural way of approaching a subject has always been to design shapes, then value shapes, then color.

They tell me that artists who are self taught have an idiot for a teacher. LOL I'd say I'm pretty much self-taught. But, I am trying to be rational here, and try stuff out.

I'm pretty sure the lights will be opaque and laid in last over the work to bring the highlights to where they need to be. This is okay. The final effect is what I need, and I'm used to working alla prima. I don't want the feeling of a tinted black and white photo, nor do I want to lose the tactile feeling of paint on canvas. So, I'm slightly worried about edges because I got really happy and involved in the grisaille process with painting little picky details.

If you want to see this beast, I put it up in the Open Critique forum in the WIPS thread and called it 'grisaille experiment.'

I have no idea if I can pull this off, but it is a nice way to learn, even if it's mostly about my own limitations! :lol: