I still use the crosshatching technique I learned at school . It has an energy that reminds me of stone carving and I approach it in a similar way. Although the stone or marble carving process is different in the sense it is reductive it still has an aspect which is akin to modelling and refining with chisels.
I’m struggling to get a good image of this painting, but these should give a general idea. The one of the painting on the wall is closer to the actual colours and also gives a sense of the painting in the round. Its 30cmx30cm. I dismissed painting a portrait in this style for ages and didn’t think it would be worth trying. I have…
I can’t take too much credit for the composition of this one which was originally photographed on the Cornish coast, one of my favourite places! I like the dribble of seawater coming off the net on the left. Its a good dribble. This was another painting that I began in acrylics and finished in oil paint, and its a method I am going to…
This is a portrait commission I did a while ago but have never shown it. It’s actually a posthumous portrait from a photo. It’s interesting because I was trying to work out how to start a portrait in acrylics and then glaze with oils. I’m still trying to find a way of painting that I can settle on. I’m a bit of a technical…
Here is a before and after picture. The first colour glaze took about 90 minutes In my portraits I would use this colour layer as a kind of underpainting and continue to refine the modelling in further glazes.
I have painted a number of these over the years but haven’t shown any until now. I thought this one worked well with the glazing process. I obviously stuck closely to the photo reference I was sent, and I painted the face using a Raw Umber and Titanium White underpainting, or grisaille and then followed this with glazes and halfpastes of Titanium White, Cadmium…
This is the first of a number of Velazquez paintings I would like to try and copy. You can see the video in real time on my patreon channel, see the link here on my website. I was interested in what palette he used and also in his use of the imprimatura and how that was left for some of the middle tones and…
Hi there, I’ve been looking forward to doing this for a while, and now I’ve completed the films of both the glazes. Here is a photo of before and after the 2nd glaze. So this is the painting again showing the change from the 1st to the 2nd glaze, and then following on from that you can see the 2nd glaze next to the…
Portrait of a young girl after Rubens 1st glaze from patreon.com/mattharveyart Here is an image of the 1st glaze as I finished filming. The real time video will be on Patreon but there is a taster on youtube. One amazing thing I discovered doing this glaze was that I only used 3 colours; Titanium White, Vermilion and Yellow Ochre. I feel now that I…
This was a commissioned portrait of a young girl with before and after images to show how I developed the underpainting. I completed the grisaille underpainting first and then added some layers of colour glazes. With this method, rather than mixing the colours on the palette, the colours are ‘mixed’ optically through progressive glazes – very thin layers – of oil paint with a…
I have just finished the first glaze in oil paints on my grisaille underpainting. This short video project was all about trying to work out how Bouguereau made his paintings, something I have often wondered about. His works have a particular translucent quality and it was my mission to try and fathom the processes behind this. I think the only real way one can…
Here is a portrait of my daughter at ballet class that I painted before attending Louis Smith’s glazing workshop. To begin I painted the whole thing in a ‘dead layer’ or monochrome using Burnt Umber, Ivory Black and Titanium White. Then I did some very thin coloured oil glazes and some ‘half-pastes’ where you’ve got a bit of white mixed with the glazes, which are more…
Portrait painting in 3 stages: The grisaille, the 1st glaze, and the 7th glaze. The glazing process is the same each time, and the portrait just gets steadily refined as it progresses I’ve nearly finished this commissioned portrait painting. It’s had 5 glazes over the initial underpainting. This picture shows the grisaille, the first glaze (which I filmed and is on youtube please click…
Here are a selection of photos showing the completed glazes done over the grisaille underpainting in this portrait commission.
My latest film, another shot while putting on the first glaze over a grisaille underpainting, is now finished and on youtube. Here’s a link to the first installment: It’s been an interesting experience filming myself working, and quite strange to watch it back as I’ve never seen myself working before. I wanted to make an authentic account of working with this method, and create…