WIP Grisaille

One of the traditional ways of doing this - there's more than one - is to block in the shape of the head with Terre Verte, a very useful, soft green, which adds a subtlety to the skin tones and glazes laid over it, then worked on to pick out the structures and details with Flake White, or Underpainting White (also lead).  The lead whites help to accelerate drying; they also provide a strong and enduring base.  You could do it with Titanium White - indeed, you have - but of course that takes the devil's own time to dry.  A compromise might be to use Alkyd White - I haven't done that, since I have no quarrel with or fears about lead white, and fortunately can still get it. It'd be worth a try, though.  Other base colours to work over would be Burnt Sienna, or Burnt Umber, which should add warmth.  Plus - both dry fairly fast. I would have some concern with using Ivory Black plus T. White, because a) both take a long time to dry, b) it could impart a greyish tinge; on the other hand, I use it with the Zorn palette, so probably I'm wrong about that; you'd expect it to dull the colours in the Zorn, but it doesn't - it's wonderful with Cadmium Red light, in particular. Looking forward to seeing your further progress on this one, then.  The drawing is wonderful already, and getting the drawing right at this stage is vital - more than once I've made the mistake of thinking 'oh, it'll turn out all right in the wash!'; but of course, it didn't.  If the drawing starts wrong, it'll likely stay wrong.  Absolutely with you on this - it is time-consuming, and I don't do it often, but it's so worth doing because yes, it really is enjoyable, and you learn so much by using this technique:  I have one on the boil now, as it happens.  As for the heat - oh yes!  I just can't stay awake in humid heat, and it ruins my concentration; trying to work through it doesn't work: much better to put the brushes down, have a cool drink, and a laze in a deck-chair. Don't neglect to tell us what you use as glazing colours, when the time comes.  

A wonderful start Denise.  A fascinating process, and I'll watch with great interest.  I always read these threads but often don't comment, since my knowledge of the practise of oil painting is about zero.  This grisaille, or underpainting, with a different colour has always intrigued me, there's a kind of alchemy going on.  A valued possession is a book by Patrick Woodruffe in which he shares his working methods...grisaille comes up at lot.  He was an English Fantasy artist.  He mentions green as an underpainting for flesh tones, which surprised me when I first read it.  In the pic below where he's painting a corn fairy with green skin, and has used Indian Red as an underpainting. My main problem with oils is patience...or my lack of it.  Patrick recommends six weeks delay between the underpainting and final glazes.   I have tried it in the past, but it wasn't for me. So...I just thought I'd stick my nose in.....nothing to offer, except interest in what you're doing.

Fascinating and impressive start Denise. I always understood grisaille to be a stand alone exercise in tones of grey as such, and hadn’t seen it used as an under painting method. Look forward to seeing how this progresses.

There's an excellent book, How to Draw and Paint What You See, by Ray Smith (not Ray Campbell-Smith, who was a watercolourist).  In it, he has a piece on grisaille underpainting, using Terre Verte and, as I remember, Underpainting (lead) white: he shows all the stages in his beautifully illustrated book, and it would be invaluable to you if you plan to use this method. Unfortunately, I believe the book to be out of print, and mine is, well - mine!  And I clutch it protectively to my bosom.  But if there are used copies out there in internet land, or in a local bookshop if you're lucky enough to have one, it would be a great find for anyone working in oil, and indeed other media.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Smith_(artist) I looked up Ray Smith, in the hope that he was still working; deeply saddening to learn that he died in 2018, of dementia: he was only 69.  This makes my copy of his book all the more precious to me, and thank whatever, God if you like, that it wasn't among those I sold to finance my move to my present address, 22 years ago: it's been so useful to me... His Wikipedia page is well worth a read in itself - for those who were asking, some time ago, about applying acrylic paint in long, thick lines, it tells you how he did it: I don't want to, but I found his process both amusing and inventive.  Do have a read. As a footnote, Ray Campbell-Smith, whom I mentioned in the previous post, was a prolific author and well-known to the publishers of Leisure Painter and The Artist: he left us not so very long ago, at the age of very nearly 100.  If only the other Ray could have lived so long: they were both fine artists. 

Its a great technique, I keep trying out myself. these are how I started some of my recent pictures for Norfolk. I used a kind of grisaille, but in this case its using brown and so is a brunaille its used in Flemish painting a lot. Along with an extremely quick drying oil mix recipe I came up with (really sticky in less than 10 minutes), then I could put the other colours on top without them moving too much. You can also work from a dark ground and put light colour on top, this is what I believe Caravaggio did, mixing his white paint with ground firefly powder to make it glow when he painted in a darkened room.