Painting progress as of today
Feel free to skip if you don't want to see things in mid paint :) :)
So the Vermeer has moved to the next stage, and the Caravaggio has been begun. It's the first time I'm using full Renaissance technique, so - as much to aid my failing memory as anything - details and further pics under the cut.
This is the part of the process I didn't get round to photographing for the Vermeer: Stage Zero, you draw on the wood panel what you plan to paint.
(Actually, there was a Stage Minus One, where we made the wood panel - in the woodshop! with extra powered power tools!! - and then gessoed and sanded to silk-smooth. Seriously, I could have stood there stroking it all day - imagine smooth cool plaster under your hand, is what it felt like. And it was a dream to draw on.)
After doing the drawing as light as I could, then came the underpainting: burnt umber really diluted in a medium of about five parts turpenoid to one linseed oil. Here I've done the darkest values (ignoring the background for the moment), with the lighter values of the body still to go:
Learning to draw a few years ago, the teacher had insisted we do contour maps, where you draw the object (our faces) with lines for all the shadows as well as the actual edges of things. They look really weird, and while they are a great training for paying attention to the shadow forms, I must admit I didn't see the point.
Painting these, I totally see the point. Here I've put a closeup of the face, which was the most detailed part of the contour drawing for this picture, and enhanced it in photoshop so you can see all the contour lines. Once the drawing is down, the underpainting is like filling in a paint-by-numbers kit - assuming you can get the values right :)
And after that, the next step is to paint the entire thing over in shades of grey, lighter than the final values will be. Apparently I screwed up here: Vermeer would have kept his grisaille, as this stage is called, more transparent and thin, like the underpainting. This is too thick for him, although it would have been okay for Caravaggio, who did fewer layers. The face and the lighter side of the skirt got two layers, so I'm still waiting for it to dry before - shock, horror! - getting to the colour bit!
So the Vermeer has moved to the next stage, and the Caravaggio has been begun. It's the first time I'm using full Renaissance technique, so - as much to aid my failing memory as anything - details and further pics under the cut.
This is the part of the process I didn't get round to photographing for the Vermeer: Stage Zero, you draw on the wood panel what you plan to paint.
(Actually, there was a Stage Minus One, where we made the wood panel - in the woodshop! with extra powered power tools!! - and then gessoed and sanded to silk-smooth. Seriously, I could have stood there stroking it all day - imagine smooth cool plaster under your hand, is what it felt like. And it was a dream to draw on.)
After doing the drawing as light as I could, then came the underpainting: burnt umber really diluted in a medium of about five parts turpenoid to one linseed oil. Here I've done the darkest values (ignoring the background for the moment), with the lighter values of the body still to go:
Learning to draw a few years ago, the teacher had insisted we do contour maps, where you draw the object (our faces) with lines for all the shadows as well as the actual edges of things. They look really weird, and while they are a great training for paying attention to the shadow forms, I must admit I didn't see the point.
Painting these, I totally see the point. Here I've put a closeup of the face, which was the most detailed part of the contour drawing for this picture, and enhanced it in photoshop so you can see all the contour lines. Once the drawing is down, the underpainting is like filling in a paint-by-numbers kit - assuming you can get the values right :)
And after that, the next step is to paint the entire thing over in shades of grey, lighter than the final values will be. Apparently I screwed up here: Vermeer would have kept his grisaille, as this stage is called, more transparent and thin, like the underpainting. This is too thick for him, although it would have been okay for Caravaggio, who did fewer layers. The face and the lighter side of the skirt got two layers, so I'm still waiting for it to dry before - shock, horror! - getting to the colour bit!