Saturday, October 17, 2009

About the grisialle underpainting

I am going to write only a little tonight. I have been painting and driving and I am real tired. I am going to address a couple of questions that came up in the comments though. The first is ;

I love clicking on those pictures and seeing that brushwork. Are you going to let those dry before going back into them again? You have not completely covered your preliminary drawing will you cover those areas before attacking what you did to this point?

I will go in and touch up whatever hangs out that bothers me when I next work on the painting. I like the painting pretty much as is, so I will probably leave it brushy and loose. I will hit the painting with retouch varnish first. It is hard to match paint to colors already dry on the canvas, but even harder if that color is dried in.I will also take a long hard look at it in a mirror and see if any faults I missed appear that way.

The other question was:

I like the way you did a grisalle out doors. I do the "wipe out" grisalle for studio work but haven't tried it out doors. Was your grisalle dry or had it set up by the time you started applying paint? What was the medium you used with your raw umber? How many different mediums are you using in this? I like this approach - the grisalle always helps me design the thing and get a handle on the choices I make of the millions of options out there.

I often do a grisialle outdoors. Often I put about 60% of my session into it. I used Gamblins alkyd medium Galkyd, I thinned it out by about a third. The oil primed panels I make are thirstier than those made with acrylic gesso or that have canvas bonded to them, so I was getting very fast drying times. By the time I finished the grisialle it was pretty much dry, which I like.


I will start a new series of posts tomorrow night, see you then.

6 comments:

Philip Koch said...

This new painting of Stape's is a good example of his professed love of later fall, when one gets tree branches that have already become bare mixed in with those still retaining their colored leaves. From a painter's perspective, it's a win-win situation, providing one more way to contrast brighter hues against subtle ones.

Fall foliage at its peak is a little like extremely colorful sunsets- great to directly experience, but not so easy to translate into the language of painting. If one is interested in learning about color, spending lots of time doing grisialle can be like a secret weapon.

My blogger account is asking me to type in the word "ditypon" before it will accept this comment. That seems touchingly poetic for so early in the morning.

mariandioguardi.com said...

Hi Stapleton,
Just to let you know; I am following the blog. I see the connections in your words of wisdom, good technique and the books that have inspired you along the way. As always, very helpful.

Been busy socializing a new juvenile cat to our household of another cat and a greyhound. Our 19 year old cat was euthanize 12 days ago. She was a great studio companion. I know you have cats and Philip has cat(s)..just wondering how many out there have cats as studio companions?

Mary Bullock said...

Marion - how does 4 cats and a beagle sound!

Stapleton Kearns said...

Philip:
Thats a great description of the problem. The foliage is just too loud, I do like it when the bones of the trees are showing. I think Jervis McEntee led dme to that.
.........Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Marian;
Sorry to hear about your cat.Actually the studio is not connected to the house so the cats are only inside.
.....Stape

Stapleton Kearns said...

Mary:
It sounds like a hard life for a beagle.
.................Stape