Remember and Inspire.

You've no doubt heard the expression, 'less is more.' But sometimes more is less.Putting in a little more work at the beginning of an artwork often results in a stronger finished painting. Simply put, an underpainting is like a drawing composed with a brush and thinned paint in one neutral color. I tend toward Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna. This time I added a little Vandyke Brown for my darkest values because silver has such strong reflections. 

Several things happen when I take the time to do this step.

First, it removes the visual confusion that often occurs when several colors are used right from the start. In full color, it's sometimes hard to tell if I've achieved strong values. By painting in just one color, or two similar colors, I can create strong contrast without much guesswork. This brings objects into sharper focus. 

Next, it allows me to make adjustments easily because the paint is less oily at this point. If I want something lighter or I make a mistake, I can simply dip my brush in a little thinner and dab at the area with a soft cloth. Notice the far sides where I softened the edges. This brings the creamer to center stage. Take a look at the hummingbird embroidered in the cloth the creamer is sitting on. I used a snip of cloth wrapped around the end of a brush to rub out fine lines. Once I start laying out thicker layers of paint, this kind of adjustment would be much harder to do.  I could just draw the original image on the panel in detail with a pencil and then start painting, but it doesn't feel or look the same and that's much more time-consuming than pushing loose paint around with a brush that is much wider than the tip of a pencil. This method acts as a painting warm up. And it dries overnight so I can begin working with more colors the very next day if it feels right.

Finally, I can blot out objects I don't want or add elements to make the image more  pleasing. Doing this at the beginning with just one color, I can see right away whether this could be a successful painting or not.  I can't tell you how many hours I've wasted in frustration and canvases I've ruined over the years by jumping in right away with the full paint colors. Right now in my studio, there are at least a dozen panels and canvases with poorly executed paintings waiting to be sanded and reused. Haste really does make waste. 

So while an underpainting takes a little more time on the front end, it ultimately saves me a lot of time and frustration. And the resulting work is more likely to be a keeper.

Did you find this helpful or enlightening? Leave a comment. 

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