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WIP Grisaille
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Posted
I've put my first glaze on today. You don't notice much of a difference with the first glaze. Colours I got ready are, Flake White Hue, Cadium Yellow. Ochre, Cadium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green, Ultramarine and Vandyke Brown. I might not use all of them but wanted them on the palette. I'm using Liquin to mix the glaze. So far, for the face, I did a glaze of Alizarin Crimson, Cadium Red and Sap Green. For the eyes Ultramarine, Sap Green and Ochre. For the Hair, Alizarin Crimson, Vandyke Brown and Cadium red. Now don't laugh, of course you can if you want, I couldn't find my wooden palette anywhere. After searching for about 20 minutes, I got fed up and reverted to a bit of tin foil around a bread board, did the job just grand.
Posted
Well, there's a novelty of a palette! Though you'd better find the real one, or you'll have a problem next time you make bread.
This is working well - the painting, of course. You've got a lot of colours in your glaze; probably usefully so, given you're painting a young person. The Zorn works with glazing, too - obviously the pigments are opaque in that case, not transparent, but they can be used quite transparently in glazes: just have more white in your grisaille than in the overpainting.
Posted
This is the second glaze applied. How many will I apply, I don't really know. Maybe 6 or 12 maybe more. How do I think I'm doing, well sometimes I think, jeeze, I'm making a right hash of things. You get to a stage when you look at something and you don't really know the outcome. The hat and coat is made from a knitted fabric and fake fur, Have I ever tried to paint knitted fabric and a fine fur, I don't think so. Do I worry about this, not really, this is a practice piece for me and I will learn while I'm doing it. If I make a mess, well, that's what practice is for. One thing for certain, I learn a lot by doing it. I will continue to take photos at each stage and when all is complete, I will post the stages and finished painting all together. Again, thanks for your thoughts and comments, they are invaluable.
Posted
Looking good - I'm sure you've researched all this, so will know that many of the old masters (and a few old mistresses - Gentileschi, for example) used many glazes, so your 6 to 12 would come as no surprise to them. What's particularly interesting is what medium, if any, they would have used - many were available, most based with the old fellers on Linseed or Walnut Oil, Stand oil, sun-thickened Linseed; it was when Sir Joshua Reynolds came along, and tried using all sorts of sticky, bitumenous resins, thinking the old masters must have used them - but not knowing what - that painters started to sabotage their own paintings by using layers of mutually incompatible materials which blistered, cracked, and peeled. In fairness of course, Reynolds was doing what you're doing - experimenting.
There's a book out now - a revised edition of Virgil Elliott's Traditional Oil Painting (which I may have suggested before, I forget things) which addresses many if not all of these issues. Whether in the book or elsewhere, he points out that glazing, using transparent colours, doesn't always require a medium to thin the paint. Anyway, you'd need to read the book, I won't bang on about it here. Suffice to say, I like where you're going with this.
And don't hesitate to tell me so if I repeat myself! Not only am I not in the first fine flush of blushing youth, but I'm on painkillers which can make me a touch spaced out on occasion......
Posted
Robert, I will definitely buy that book because I am really interested in how things were done and learning and practising the process because it's the sort of art I like. I guess it can be time consuming, drying times and such but I'm in no rush, I do other paintings. sketching, drawings inbetween. Thanks very much Robert.
Posted
Denise - it's published by Echo Point books, in the USA. Do buy it soon because it may go out of stock as it did before with the previous edition.
My copy arrived very speedily from the company, and is a treasured possession. If - you may hate Facebook: I know I do! - but if you venture on the Facebook/Meta pages, and visit the Tradition Oil Painting page, you can interact directly with Virgil, and he even has an offer to refund your purchase on his book if you don't find it helpful: I can't begin to imagine how anyone would not find it helpful, it's a tour-de-force. And on that page, Virgil is delightfully grumpy if people post dubious advice - I do love an elderly gentleman with an extremely limited degree of patience for silliness: I wonder why that would be....
I am sure you would benefit hugely from Virgil's book: I did, and I've been painting in oil for almost as long as he has.
Posted
Traditional Oil Painting page - sorry, been at the gin and tonic. I would recommend this page, but far more so this book, for anyone seriously interested in oil painting. It is the absolute polar opposite of all that is Bob Ross: Virgil may be - a bit of - a curmudgeon, but his knowledge is unrivalled, his connections with academic research unimpeachable, and - this is a bit import too - he can paint.
Posted
Gorgeous work, Denise. I'm enjoying this thread and look forward to seeing your progress. It's difficult to find classes in oils, probably because of transport of wet canvases, and perhaps because of 'health & safety'. I've only made one oil attempt, so thanks for the recommendations Robert.
I'm impressed with the fineness, Denise. Could I ask the dimensions and the surface/prep you are using, next time you update?
Posted
I am sure you would benefit hugely from Virgil's book: I did, and I've been painting in oil for almost as long as he has.I hope you're right, Robert. I've never spent so much on a book. I joined the Facebook group , so now I'll have to use that platform more often! He runs that group with an iron fist :). I was going to post about his rules about projections (what about camera lucida?) and that water miscible oil discussions are verboten....I thought better of it! If anyone else thinks of buying it, I used Abebooks, who have the latest edition (no point in spending that much money on the older version) It ships from the USA , so I'll have to wait a while. I thought Virgil's own shipping costs were too high
Posted
Thanks to this site's use of Cloud Flare, a reply I just made to Norrette's post has disappeared, and I'm not going to try saying all that again! Just take this bit from it - get the book. Doesn't matter what it cost so long as you have the cash, get it and you won't regret it.
If Cloud Flare or whatever the bloody thing is called has nothing to do with any decision on the part of this site, I apologize to them for thinking it has: but it's a complete menace.
Posted
Right, temper ALMOST regained, I shall try again. I'll say no more about the book.
On camera lucida, Virgil quarrels with Hockney - he thinks the old masters knew what they were doing because they were old masters; and that Hockney and others are speculating fruitlessly about whether they used camera lucida or not. As Virgil is writing a book about Jan Vermeer, he was particularly irritated by a suggestion that JV had used camera lucida; no, he said, in so many words: it's just that Vermeer could PAINT. Plus - there's no evidence at all that he, or others, used camera lucida at all frequently, or even at all.
On water miscible oils - Virgil regards them as being entirely unnecessary, since you don't need solvents in order to paint in oil. In my humble way, I agree with him, and anyway find them unpleasant to use, sticky, under-pigmented, and frankly not just a little bit of a con-trick: manufacturers may claim that they're just the same as high quality oils, only ground in modified Linseed. This is self-evident nonsense: if they were any better than basic student paints, they wouldn't be available at student grade paint prices. Plus, we have no idea what formulae different paint makers might use to make their water-miscible paints - it's a commercial secret - so we similarly have no means of knowing how they'll fare in the long run; say in 100 to 200 years. Virgil thinks that's a question which matters and needs to be answered.
If Cloud Flare loses THIS one, I shall be ...... quite cross.