How an underpainting will help you create better painting.
Today I'm going to write about one of my favorite subject matters to talk about when someone's just starting on their oil painting journey.
It's the very first step in a four-step method I always use to structure my painting process, and it's a step that's going to make it a lot easier for you to feel confident about the drawing and values in your painting.
The name of this stage is the underpainting stage.
It's a stage that I know will set me off on the right track, and it's a stage that I think is crucial to having a good painting experience. I like to call this stage your painting roadmap because it's the stage where you map out where everything is going to be placed on your canvas.
In this stage, you will lay in the big proportions of your drawing and your values.
Now, the trick in this stage is to just use one color and you want the color you choose to ideally tick all these boxes;
1. Wide value range.
You want to use a color that has a wide value range. This means the value can go from fairly light if you put it on thinly to quite dark if you put it on a bit thicker.
2. Neutral color temperature.
You also want this value to have quite a neutral color, because if you have a pigment with a very strong color, like red or blue, then this is going to most likely throw off your perception of the true color and value of the colors you put on top of your underpainting.
E.g. If you have a very warm underpainting then all the colors you put on top of that underpainting are going to seem very cold, and vice versa.
So if you have a very cool underpainting, all the color mixes are going to seem very warm. A neutral color, on the other hand, won't interfere with your color mixes which will make it easy for you to see the true color and value of what you're painting.
3.Fast drying time.
A lot of people prefer their underpainting to be completely dry before they add on the color mixes because they're scared of the underlying color in the underpainting blending with the color mixes on top, something that can create muddy colors. Because of this, you want to use a fast-drying pigment.
This is also important because of the; Fat over lean rule.
The fat over lean rule means is that you want to work your way from thinner less fatty layers of paint towards thicker more oily layers of paint.
This is because when the paint dries it moves. So, if the top layer is dry but the underlying layer is still drying, then the top layer is not going to be flexible enough to move with that underlying layer, which can result in the top layer of paint breaking. Which, of course, you don't want to happen.
Now, one pigment that ticks all these boxes is a color called; Raw Umber. You can also use a color called Burnt Umber, but it's a bit warmer, so I prefer to work from Raw umber.
Use a Thinner.
Another thing to keep in mind when you're making an underpainting is that if you need to make the paint more fluid you want to use something called, a thinner.
Don't use an oily medium because that will slow down the drying time of the underpainting. The thinner I use and that I like to recommend is the thinner from Senneliers Green for Oil series.
This thinner is completely non-toxic, it's great for thinning out your paint in those first layers of your painting, and a tip is that you can also use this thinner to remove the paint of your brushes and your palette at the end of your painting session.
In other words, this thinner is a great investment because it's very versatile you can use it for a lot of different things.
Think of your underpainting like a drawing!
What you want to do, is think of this stage as a drawing.
In many ways, it is drawing, because you're just using one color as if you were using a pencil or a piece of charcoal, and you can also use a piece of paper or a dry brush as an eraser if you want to correct the values or the drawing of what you're mapping out.
Now, you can make a lot of different underpaintings. You can make a really simple one, which focuses more on lines and larger shapes, or you can go as complex as you want to. It all depends on how much information you feel you need to be more confident with your painting when you start to lay in the color mixes that you're going to place on top of your underpainting.
So, for example, sometimes I'll just create a super simple one with some lines and bigger blocks of value, or if I have a much larger composition where I am dealing with more objects or people, then I will spend longer in this phase and map everything out.
TRUTH,
When I started painting with oils, I never used to create underpaintings.
I didn't know of underpaintings before I'd been painting with oils for a few years. What I did was I used to go straight in with my color mixes and what usually happened was that I would have to re-paint and move all those color mixes around on my canvas a lot before they were in the right place.
This is because I didn't have the certainty that an underpainting will give you. 80 % of me putting down those color mixes was just guesswork. That's why I think one of the biggest benefits with an underpainting is mapping out your values but also becoming more certain of your drawing.
Because if you're not certain of your drawing, and if you don't know your composition, then this can really affect your painting process.
It might seem like you know where everything is going to be placed and you might think that it's going to look good when you get it up on your canvas, but before you've tried to put everything on your canvas and seen how everything works together as a whole, you don't actually know if it's going to work out.
This is especially true in the beginning before you become used to creating compositions and you get used to placing things on a canvas and see how elements and shapes are working together.
My painting ‘‘Lavender with sea shell’’ as in the underpainting stage and as a finished painting.
That's the main reason I love underpaintings, because they truly help you see if everything works out before you go through the trouble and time it takes to add on all those color mixes.
Okay, so there you have a little bit about the process of making an underpainting.
Why we make it, the materials you should use, and why you should use them.
So now I'm curious to know, have you ever created an underpainting before?
And if you have, then what is your experience? Do you think it's an important factor to set yourself up for success with your painting?
Let me know!
Happy painting,