Home › Forums › Explore Media › Oil Painting › Underpainting in Burnt Umber
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October 7, 2009 at 5:36 pm #988178
The black gessoed canvas is not working out so hot. What about doing a value study in Burnt Umber. Should you mix Ultramarine Blue with Burnt Umber for darkest values? Should you do the value study lighter then the original? Would it be ok to do the value study in acrylics? Sorry for all the questions. I’m exploring different ways to complete a painting and still haven’t found what works for me. I keep hitting a brick wall.:)
Janet Bionda
http://janet-coloredpencil.blogspot.com/
October 7, 2009 at 10:34 pm #1125284Janet, I am currently doing an underpainting using Artisan w/m burnt umber, burnt sienna and titanium white and it’s working well for me. I have learnt from past experience not to take the darks too dark at this stage.
You can use an acrylic underpainting but it has to be very thin. I have done that in the past but I just prefer to do it all now with w/m’s.Lulu
Proud to be Kiwi!
October 7, 2009 at 10:58 pm #1125286Burnt umber is a good choice for undertones. Ult. blue would be fine; although, they both tend to shift a bit red. This is a good place for phthalo blue since they are more complementary I believe, but not as dark in shade. Raw sienna can help with some of the lighter tones if you mix with titanium white.
I prefer to keep my undertones in the mid range of values. From a 0-10 scale, I’d use 4-7. It gives me room to go in either direction.
What was it about the black ground that was giving you trouble?
David Blaine Clemons
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My Website
My BlogOctober 7, 2009 at 11:32 pm #1125311My oil painting took a big step forward when I started doing underpaintings. My underpainting is usually monochromatic, but without any specific “formulas. I have mixed browns (burnt umber, raw or burnt sienna) with blues (probably Ultramarine or Prussian) or sometimes greens. You could use grays using just black and white. The idea is to work out the composition and the values without having to worry about making color decisions. I do not glaze – so I attempt to make my values accurate. My understanding is that when you do glaze, your underpainting should be somewhat lighter in value, as the values will tend to get a bit darker with each layer you glaze.
When your underpainting is dry, then you can choose colors that match the values you have already established. As soon as you put a brush stroke of a color down – or even before you place it on the canvas – you should be able to compare the value to the underpainting. In some places, the gray, or neutral nature of the underpainting, will need little (or no) paint on top, as the gray will be the starting point for your shadow colors. Letting some of the underpainting show through, or painting some of the more transparent colors over the gray, will often create a unifying undertone to the entire painting.
Hopefully this makes sense and may give you a good starting point. Or, of course, you may do things completely differently!
Don
October 8, 2009 at 12:12 am #1125327[FONT=Times New Roman]I have used a formula similar to Don’s idea for many decades given to me by my old Oil teacher. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman]A coat of 50% turpentine and 50% Yellow Ochre. You can substitute a mix of Lemon Yellow and Yellow Ochre, 50% each. Let dry.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]Add a coat of Burnt or Raw Sienna cut with 50% turpentine over the top of that. Or you can use the wipeout method, which is similar to staining a wood surface only rubbing in as much as you want the layer dark.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman]The point of this exercise is to add light to the under-layers of the painting giving it luminosity. In addition the dark, but not too dark overcoat pulls all of the upper layers of additional paint into a nice Chromatic Color Scheme when dry. This undercoating is especially beneficial for portraits. [/FONT]Jan
October 8, 2009 at 7:47 am #1125312Lulu, Thank you Lulu for your help! I think using the WMOs for the underpainting might be a good idea. With acrylics I’ll probably have issues with blending. The reason that I switched to WMOs from acrylics was to be able to blend easily. I guess I’m going to need to acquire some patience a wait a day while the underpainting dries.
David, Thank you for the great info! I haven’t tried the Phthalo Blue yet in any of my paintings. I’ve been avoiding it. I’ll try it with the Burnt Umber to see what I get. I don’t have Raw Sienna yet in the Holbein. The black ground was causing be grief. Trying to work light to dark was just too weird. It’s much easier to lighten a color then to darken it as you go. Because working this way creates a weir overlap with your lights before your darks I need to redo all the lights again and was just getting lost with the original scheme.
Don, Thank you for the great advice! I was thinking of just using black and white. I might try that one as well. I wouldn’t be glazing either so I think I’d go with making the values accurate. I think it will be a good roadmap. It made perfect sense and it sounds like a good way to go.
Jan, Great colors to tone a canvas. I can see how it would work great for portraits. Thank you for the tip!
Janet Bionda
http://janet-coloredpencil.blogspot.com/
October 8, 2009 at 12:28 pm #1125287Lots of good advice here, Janet.
Burnt umber and a blue such as ultramarine or phthalo will certainly give you good near-black darks – or you could use burnt sienna if you prefer a more chromatic brown, or raw umber for a less chromatic one.
black+white mixes tend to give you bluish greys rather than neutral ones. It can be useful to add a little of one of the browns to such mixes to swing them from low-chroma blues to neutral or even to low-chroma browns/oranges as grisailles under flesh.
I’d encourage people to stick with one medium when learning – I mean, do the whole painting in Oils, rather than starting in Acrylics and then switching.:)
Regard the drying time between layers as thinking/planning time – and its always possible to have two or three paintings on the go simultaneously, of course.
Dave
October 8, 2009 at 12:45 pm #1125313Dave, thank you for the tips on color! I think you have a good point regarding doing the whole painting in oils. For me I think it’s a little bit of a security blanket issue trying to hang on to something I know and understand acrylics. Good idea to do more than one painting I’ll try that. Thank you for you help!
Janet Bionda
http://janet-coloredpencil.blogspot.com/
October 13, 2009 at 10:05 am #1125302Janet have you seen Karin Wells’ site?
http://karinwells.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20to%20make%20a%20grisaille
http://karinwells.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20to%20build%20the%20dead%20layer
http://karinwells.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20I%20painted%20Gwyneth
tommyhunt.comFor reason to tolerate those who refuse to play by the rules of reason is nothing else but the suicide of reason. ~ Lee Harris
October 13, 2009 at 10:51 am #1125329If you look at the history of underpainting there is actually a bit more to it than just making a visual choice of colours, there is also a certain amount of chemistry involved.
I would tend to use earth colours for an underpainting, simply because they are good siccatives, what this means is that the earth pigments act like a sort of catalyst to help the oxidising/drying process which means that not only does the underpainting tend to dry quicker, it also helps facilitate better drying for the layers of paint above.
I personally wouldn’t use blues in my underpainting as you don’t get the siccative properties of the earth pigments, and I certainly would never use white as the drying times are very poor and can affect the stability of subsequent layers (you can buy ‘undercoating white’ but TBH I’m a little wary even of this)
I’d say raw umber is a good choice for creating underpaintings with fairly neutral shades that work well with either warm or cool overpaintings
My Website : http://www.greywolf-art.co.uk/
My Blog: http://greywolf-art.blogspot.com/index.htmlOctober 13, 2009 at 11:05 am #1125330Janet have you seen Karin Wells’ site?
[URL]http://karinwells.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20to%20make%20a%20grisaille[/URL]
[URL]http://karinwells.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20to%20build%20the%20dead%20layer[/URL]
[URL]http://karinwells.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20I%20painted%20Gwyneth[/URL]
although Karins paintings are excellent I’d be slightly wary of some of the advice she gives – on two of those links she talks about using a sharpie to draw directly onto the canvas – bad idea! although the paintings may seem ok to begin with, the pigments used in markers like this can migrate through the paint layers over time eventually ruining the painting,
if you’ve ever tried to paint over your kids felt tip drawings on the wall only to have them soak through the paint no matter how hard you try you will have an idea of what I mean, it might take a fair bit longer with a sharpie, but in time it will happen
I’d also be careful using ivory black and white in underpaintings as the slow drying times could cause problems down the line (remember fat over lean also means slower drying over fast drying)
My Website : http://www.greywolf-art.co.uk/
My Blog: http://greywolf-art.blogspot.com/index.htmlOctober 13, 2009 at 11:16 am #1125314Tommy, Thank you for the links… they’re great and give me some good ideas on how to approach this.
Graham, thank you for the great tips. I never noticed the fact she used a sharpie but I agree it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. She has some great info on underpainting though.
Janet Bionda
http://janet-coloredpencil.blogspot.com/
October 13, 2009 at 11:23 am #1125285wow there is loads of wonderful information on Karen Well’s site Tommy, thanks for posting the links.
Lulu
Proud to be Kiwi!
October 14, 2009 at 7:25 pm #1125303It was Karin who really got me into using raw umber and white for the under painting and I agree with Greywolf’s crits. I winced when I saw the sharpie tip. Don’t use pencil either unless you seal it with acrylic. Didn’t know the earth colors were so chemically agreeable aside from the fat on lean principle though.
tommyhunt.comFor reason to tolerate those who refuse to play by the rules of reason is nothing else but the suicide of reason. ~ Lee Harris
October 14, 2009 at 7:41 pm #1125325This brings up a question in my mind. If I use watered down raw umber as an underpainting, does that weaken the paint film? I have read Mark Weber’s book on water mixable oils, and I believe he stated that in there.
Because if, as greywolf says, I can’t use white in an underpainting due to its slow drying, then I would want to thin the umber and use the canvas for the white. But if watered down umber = weak paint, then how does one do an underpainting properly using water solubles?
Oh, maybe by using a medium. But that is precisely what I am trying to avoid by switching to water solubles.
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