You’ve probably heard of underpainting and may think it’s for oil painters trying to emulate the techniques of the old masters.
Forget that – it’s a great way for you to liven up your paintings, explore values and rid yourself of the dreaded blank canvas syndrome.
Rather than being a confining exercise, underpainting frees up an artist to explore relative values while the painting is still in the beginning stages.
It also infuses a painting with life and complexity as the primary layers complement and enhance later layers.
Another benefit of underpainting is the removal of that alarming expanse of blank canvas that renders many a timid artist immobile and incapable of proceeding.
Underpainting For Value Definition
Establishing your values correctly at the beginning of your painting removes a big stumbling block from your project. If you correctly source your light and give the composition the appropriate values in the very beginning, you don’t need to worry about value as you add definition and local color to the painting.
You can concentrate on the fun part of your painting – playing with colors, adding details and ignore that boring, technical aspect since you’ve already worked it out with your underpainting.
This is also useful to see if your composition is really as strong as you think it is. Local color hampers seeing compositional strengths and weaknesses, so working out composition flaws in the beginning stage of your painting saves you from later finding out your painting isn’t as good as it could be.
Underpainting To Bring Life To Your Colors
Let’s say you’re painting a landscape of a green field, some trees, a clear river and a brilliant sky. It’s going to be a very, very blue and green painting. And, unless you’re a master of painting convincing greens, it’s going to look pretty artificial.
By using complementary colors like orange for the sky and crimson for the greenery to underpaint your composition, you’ll instantly add life and a glow to your painting. These colors also add warmth to your cool-hued painting.
This adds depth and realism to your painting while giving it a painterly quality when you allow bits of the underpainting to show through. A painting that lacks the layers of color build-up may appear flat and the colors may look artificial.
Green is a good underpainting color for skin tones, while purple is useful for warm, yellow-toned compositions.
Underpainting Eliminates The Blank Canvas Syndrome
At one time or another, every artist has probably experienced this dreaded condition. Like writer’s block, this debilitating situation is a dreadful feeling.
By simply blocking out the main shapes of a composition, even if it’s still in the beginning stages, you remove the frightening specter of pure white canvas and allow yourself to move forward.
Underpainting Gives Instant Atmosphere To Any Painting
If you want a painting to have a warm, cheery glow, start with an underpainting of yellow ochre, burnt sienna or any warm color. This will instantly warm up a cool painting.
For example, a winter snow scene is definitely a cool painting. Add warmth to it by starting with some yellow and crimson underpainting in both the snow area and perhaps the sky. By allowing some of those warm colors to peak through the snow banks and the leaden sky, you’re heating up that frigid, winter atmosphere.
Using color in this way affects the overall mood of your piece and directs your viewer. Instead of being a cold, foreboding snow scene that precludes lingering, your warm-temperature winter wonderland invites the audience to stay awhile.
Incorporate underpainting into your artistic bag of tricks. You’ll find it adds energy to even the quietest piece and a painterly quality to your work that raises it to the next level.
