This was a commissioned portrait of a young girl and here are before and after images to show how I developed the underpainting. Grisaille underpainting was completed first and then I 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 […]
Tag: commission art
Oil painting as alchemy – Dry brush blending in portraiture
I was able to practise my dry brush blending with this portrait of a beautiful girl called Violet. This portrait commission was a staging post for me in developing my understanding of the grisaille technique. I’m now much more comfortable marrying techniques of glazing with my earlier familiar method of building up solid planes of colour. I […]
Portrait of Bea, final glaze
Portrait of Bea. After feeling around what might work for the background I settled on this regal blue, and I gave the painting a few glazes of Michael Harding’s Ultramarine, which is both warm and sharp, and has a depth while also firmly hovering on the picture plane. Ultramarine blue was discovered around 1820. Before […]
