matt harvey art
Portrait paintings, art demonstrations, figurative painting, landscapes
How Much Does a Portrait Commission Cost?
Posted on July 30, 2026
If you’re thinking about commissioning a portrait, cost is usually the first question. Here’s a breakdown of what affects the cost of a portrait commission with me, so you know what to expect before you get in touch.
My current prices
These are starting prices for a single head-and-shoulders portrait in either pencil or oils.
• Pencil portrait — from £600
• Oil portrait — from £800
• Marble or bronze — price on request, depending on scale and complexity. Marble portraits can take a couple of months to carve.
if you’re asking yourself how much does it cost to commission a portrait, there are a few factors involved.
What affects the cost of a portrait commission
Size. The starting prices indicate a portrait head on paper or canvas, roughly A4 size. A larger canvas or panel takes more time and materials, so price scales with dimensions.
How many people (or pets) are in the portrait. A double or family portrait costs more than a single figure, since each additional person adds significant working time — composing multiple likenesses convincingly together is a different job to painting one.
Medium. Pencil is generally the most accessible starting point, but my work in pencil is for me as rigorous and challenging as oil painting, given the crosshatching style I work in. The starting prices are in fact similar and reflect the fact the labour can be similar. Oil can take longer if painted using the glazing technique — built up in glazes over a grisaille underpainting, which is a slower, multi-stage process rather than a single sitting. Marble and bronze are priced individually, since materials and casting/carving costs vary a lot project to project.
Working from a sitting vs. photographs. Where possible, I like at least one live sitting alongside reference photos. This doesn’t necessarily change price, but it affects timeline and may involve travel if you’re not local to Devon.
Framing. Frames are quoted separately, since the right frame depends on the piece and where it’ll hang. I have a very good framer I use and would be happy to put you in touch with them so the portrait can be framed before shipping. Some clients I have worked with like to use their own framers. It can be useful to see the finished article in the round before deciding on a frame.
What’s included
Every commission includes discussion of composition and pose, progress updates as the piece develops, and the opportunity for feedback before the work is finished. I want you to be genuinely happy with the result, which is why I consider portrait painting to also be a collaboration between us. I’ll continually update you at every stage and you will be able to request changes and offer feedback throughout.
Timeline
It’s all dependent on the composition. Plan for several weeks to a few months depending on my current workload and the complexity of the piece. I’ll give you a realistic estimate for your specific commission when we discuss it. I am able to work quickly but this all depends on my workload.
Getting a personal quote
Because so much depends on size, medium, and subject, the best way to find out how much a portrait costs for your specific idea is to get in touch directly with a description of what you have in mind — including how many figures, roughly what size, and whether you’re drawn to pencil, oil, or sculpture. I would be happy to talk through options and find something that fits your budget. You can find a full price list and contact me on the commission a portrait page.
Short clip of my latest painting
Posted on May 12, 2024
I love drawing and painting the human figure. I see these paintings as sculptures though really, they are prequels to carvings.
I am wary of interpretation with these paintings. For me, in and of themselves they show the beautiful symmetry of the human form as it reflects the macrocosmic universe.
Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, 1st glaze
Posted on February 21, 2019
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 may have been a bit stubborn in my pursuit of authenticity in the process here. Looking at the original I am sure that these are the only colours Rubens used, although the fact remains that there are deeper shadows in the original. Usually I would have painted the shadows in first and worked the highlights into them, and I am sure I would have got closer to it if I had. I have read that Rubens used Burnt Umber and Alizarin Crimson as well as Ultramarine Blue, and all these would have helped create shadows in the first glaze. I will correct it in the 2nd glaze but honestly I would have liked to get closer to the original painting. Comparing them here I can see that Rubens’ colours were a lot darker, or richer. I don’t know for sure if he used further glazes, and my initial guess is he finished it in the 1st. Having said that though, when you look at it the paint looks as if it has been built up in layers, but its hard to tell. I might try and do it again from a print of my underpainting.
I say I think he finished it in one go after underpainting because his paintings generally have that effortless spontaneity in the brushwork and the handling of paint. He worked quickly, and relished the magical effects of glazing over grisaille underpainting and the efficiency of this process. His large studio and many commissions encouraged this way of working – prizing brevity and clarity and the swashbuckling technique that is so characteristic of Baroque painting.
The shadows are simply the underpainting showing through and possibly the underpainting was in quite high contrast, or certainly more than you would usually expect. Look at the cool areas around her mouth. These are created only by the raw umber underpainting showing through the glaze above. But then maybe the shadow under her right eye is made with a cheeky bit of Burnt Umber and Vermilion? Its fun to try and find out. Fun and agonising at the same time. When teams lose a rugby match the captain always says something like ‘It’s really hurting! The lads just wish they could go out there and play them again now!’ Painting always feels like that. Especially when you’re waiting for the thing to dry so you can just get out there again and make it right.
Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, grisaille underpainting
Posted on February 16, 2019
Grisaille of Portrait of a young girl after Rubens
I’ve been finishing the grisaille for this portrait painting copy off camera, which is relaxing! I worked on it for another 2 hours roughly, mainly adding pure black here and there and adjusting the shadows. There were a few areas where I sharpened the drawing, but its a fine balance between trying to work in a way that is possibly similar to Rubens and also precise in the copying. I have used fairly loose brushwork around the painting, particularly on her collar and black dress, because it doesn’t feel right copying a fluid spontaneous brushmark exactly.
Better I feel to approach it with some of the spontaneity of the artist. Even though it might not be an exact copy, its an interpretation of the artists work and at the same time an attempt to understand aspects his process. There are many many factors involved in this though. Things like size of brushes, mediums, painting surface etc., all create the impression of the painting, and here I am perhaps guilty of a lack of rigour. It is still possible just to approach something that may resemble Rubens’ working method even though in this painting my brushes mediums and painting surface are different.
I have honestly loved painting this copy so far, and have gained a much deeper appreciation of Rubens the artist. I have always loved painting with grisaille, and Raw Umber and Titanium White is very beautiful together. Painting the black today has finished this stage, and I can now make it available as a print so that anyone who may want to try and glaze it themselves can have a go.
Prints are available in my etsy shop.
Here is the grisaille next to the reference. Its difficult to pinpoint what isn’t quite working here, but things usually get resolved with the colour glazes. I wanted to put some darker shadows around her mouth because you can see this underpainting showing through in the original. Hopefully then I will be able to create the same effect. Looking at the glazing on the original I think he’s used a mix of Vermilion and probably Yellow Ochre, and you can see the almost patchy way he has applied various combinations of these pigments around her face: her temple, cheeks, forhead etc. He has also used something more like Vermilion and white to create a pink which can also be seen here and there. I hope to be able to show that process or something like it when I film myself painting the glazes soon. I will only really know when I have tried it. You can see all the highs and lows of the glazing in real time on my patreon page, patreon.com/mattharveyart.
Original painting by Peter Paul Rubens and grisaille underpainting copy
Video of 1st glaze on underpainting ‘After Bouguereau’
Posted on June 29, 2018
After the first glaze
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 do that is to use the glazing technique over a grisaille. Of course you may get an idea of how it was done using different painting methods or materials but I wanted to stick as closely as possible to a generally agreed method of glazing. It is debatable whether he actually glazed over a grisaille every time and I’m not claiming to know his actual practice. But he surely did glaze some of his skin tones and the grisaille method is a lovely way of demonstrating how glazing works.
The only real way to understand another artist’s technique is to try and do it oneself. I was given some advice once to try this. Then we can see the gaps betweeen ourselves and our masters in art, and we can aim higher and higher to try to reach these heights. I have not copied many works in my art practice but this has been an invaluable exercise in understanding glazing generally. That is my real and only goal actually; to find a way to develop my own practice with glazing in my paintings. But in the process I hope to leave a course of videos that might enable anyone to achieve similar results to Bouguereau with a little practice. I feel that actually this technique is deceptively simple, but I am still trying to work out the most efficient way of doing it. If you look at Caravaggio’s paintings you can see that once the underpainting was done it was a small step to add some colour, although being able to do it is another matter entirely.
This is from the first to the second glaze, the colours deepening and becoming richer. The first glaze is always more tentative as I feel my way over the colours, then I found I could be a lot bolder in the second.
I still feel that anyone can begin to approach painting in the same way as these artists, it just needs practice.
This piece obviously needs some more work to get close to Bouguereau’s, but its only the first glaze, so I’m really looking forward to doing the second glaze and more. I’m thinking of getting a print of the grisaille and trying all over again, and that way I think I might actually crack it, based on lessons learned so far. It was never about making a perfect copy, only trying to come close to the original so as to learn the process generally.
I’m still getting used to filming myself working. The hardest thing about it is making room for the painting and the palette, where I would normally be much closer to the painted surface. I normally spend the whole time panicking!
Learning the glazing technique from Bouguereau, new series of videos
Posted on June 12, 2018
I’m embarking on another short series of videos on my youtube channel showing the process of copying this part of a Bouguereau painting from start to finish. I hope to use this as a way to learn about his process and to improve my own glazing technique. Bouguereau used glazing and also glazed over grisaille underpainting as a technique of painting and his glazing has a beautiful translucent quality. This first video focusses on how I prepare a canvas or board and using a grid to transfer a photo or drawing to the surface. This is how I work for all of my commissioned portraits.
This is what the demonstration looks like after working. These images show the grisaille stage of my copy and then then first glaze. The first glaze is filmed in real time on youtube. This took around an hour, but that was for the purposes of the demonstration. I may take longer to do a single glaze although its questionable whether that would make great TV.
What the video highlights is the dramatic, magical quality of the glazing technique and how it can quickly breathe life into a monochrome painting. Bouguereau often also just glazed over colour and that is how many artists work, myself included sometimes. I just love the magic of glazing colour and the drama is heightened when done over black and white. I’m using Ivory Black and Titanium White. Flake White, made using Lead Oxide, is arguably more juicy and less opaque than Titanium White but I’ve stopped using it because I don’t like the idea of everything in the studio getting covered in traces of Lead. Titanium White just needs to be handled with care so as to avoid it flattening and bleaching everything out.
From grisaille to the first glaze. After Bouguereau
From 1st glaze to the second glaze. Deepening the colours after a tentative start
There’s more drama in the second stage where the colours are deepened. Perhaps I could have got closer to this in the first glaze, I just have to respect the opacity of Titanium White and the intensity of the colours. I begin by feeling my way through the chroma and having laid down markers at this stage I can then proceed more confidently in the later stages. The worst thing is going too fast too soon and then having to backtrack. This is almost always where I fudge it. Or at least I could do without the extra stress of having to make amends. After these educated guesses and tentative steps I’ll then continue to refine the chroma in the third, fourth and fifth glazes and then leave it, usually. This is also closer perhaps to Bouguereau’s general working method as far as I can see; colour glazes over colour.
One bit of magic I loved was glazing her hair band. Its just a loose stroke of thin orangey paint, as I remember. One stroke and it’s done. I deepened it later with another glaze but that’s it. It’s the sparkle, the gorgeous, breathtaking simplicity and effortlessness as the pigments sing over the underpainting that gets me going. Perhaps the metaphor of a musical chord is right. Here it’s just a layer of juicy paint. Nothing at all. A smear on the pallet suddenly becomes a shining jewel. This is something to celebrate and cherish. What a joy painting can be. In Middlemarch Eliot said that colour penetrates our souls in the same way scent does, and here we are looking at pure light.
I’ll try and add a clip here:
If you’d like a portrait built up this way — grisaille, then successive glazes, get in touch about a commission.
Here is the original, cropped from the full nude painting. This particular photo doesn’t have the high chroma from the version I painted. Maybe I should have copied more of it as it’s a nice painting. I don’t know if the crop visually makes sense however I think it works for the demonstration though.
William Bouguereau- Après le Bain
I would have been laughed at by my old art school mates for even showing an interest in Bouguereau. I probably still am! I can find some of his paintings and their sentimentality irritating, and the first book I read at art was Ways of Seeing by John Berger where Berger lays into Bouguereau as the prime example of silliness in 19th century Academic painting. Berger is right about Bouguereau taking nudity to silly extremes sometimes, but then Apres le Bain has its own painterly merits. It is everything Berger said, and yet I still like it for its beautiful translucent glazing effects, here depicting a beautiful naked or ‘nude’ young woman. I love the way he treats shadow tones on the skin with glazes, as I do a lot of Bouguereau’s other paintings. I don’t know if it’s possible that I can look beyond the subject to the technique. It was the only painting he made that had a portrait I felt I could use for this demonstration.
Here is a link to the first video in the series:
Commissioned portrait painting
Posted on June 5, 2018
Portrait of a girl. Oil on board. 30x40cm
These images (the 1st 2 are film stills) show the first 3 glazes as they went on, alongside the initial underpainting. This portrait was a challenge in the sense that I underestimated how light the reference was and how light the final painting would be, so the grisaille was too dark to begin with and the glazes darkened it further. It is still a challenge to find this balance in the grisaille and resist the temptation to paint it too darkly.
When the values are a bit dark in the grisaille it can take a while to lighten them, although this can be a blessing because repeated glazing has an unrivalled quality compared to only a few glazes.
Philip Guston described himself as a moral painter, and said the effort a painter puts into their art is still there in the final painting. Sometimes where the path of least resistance has been taken, paintings can have a shallow quality sometimes. But all the effort and struggle, corrections, reworking, repeated revising etc. carry a moral charge that one can intuitively feel and perceive in the final painting.
The video I made of the first glaze going on the underpainting is here on my videos page.
In the end I felt that it worked better to declutter the background, but I kept the colour suggestion of the chair, a warm light green.
Portrait painting in oil – underpainting in grisaille
Posted on May 8, 2018
I have been reworking a long standing grisaille portrait painting in oil and experimenting with a more colourful painterly approach. I am still using the glazing technique, but with a more complex palette than some of my other work. The original photo reference was taken in an interior space under a combination of artificial light and daylight. This gave the skin in the reference a rich multi-hued surface, where the face was illuminated artificially and was only slightly in any shadow. Looking at it one can see oranges, greens, blues, yellows, every colour imaginable but with only the slightest variation in value, or light and dark. It has some beautiful cool shadows juxtaposed against warm (very warm) highlights.
I was pleased with the grisaille underpainting, and it worked because I am now more attuned to the very subtle changes in value when painting portraits. In the past I may have mistakenly exaggerated the changes in value, or light to dark, but I have come to see that these changes are only very minor and actually best left to the overpainting and colour glazes. It appears best to take a ‘paint by numbers’ approach and work in larger areas of grey values, what they call ‘blocking in’, and to use colour to build the shape of the face. Unless a sitter is very brightly illuminated with a strong chiaroscuro effect, then even the differences between shadow and highlights in a portrait can be quite subtle. Working in colour as opposed to modelling light to dark is something Cezanne called ‘modulation’ – where colour alone creates the sense of the form. He said ‘When colour is richest, form is most complete’.
I have painted a few grisaille portraits where the grisaille is too dark, and this was the problem here. Unfortunately I can’t show a photo of the first glaze which didn’t work, but the colour glazes I used over the initial grisaille made it all too dark. This has happened in some other portraits I have painted. Oil colours themselves can have different values depending on how much paint you put on, so when I tried to colour his cheek using a little alizarin crimson with sap green this was too much and ended looking unsightly. When I squint my eyes at the reference it looks the same as the grisaille in terms of the values, so in order to make room for the colours on top I needed to lighten it first. I don’t actually like painting too methodically in this way, as it seems to suck all the joy and spontaneity out of it so I need to develop it so it still feels natural. By natural I mean the relationship between me and subject is one of looking and responding in the most unaffected way, without calculation. Here is a portrait from 15 years ago, painted before I got stuck into the grisaille technique and trying to find the best formula to paint with. I still love the freshness and simplicity in the drawing and colour rendering. My goal would be to combine this with a more rigorous technique if that is at all possible.
Portrait of Tom – painted in a sitting without any knowledge baggage! I hope to return to this way of working, without losing everything I now know about colour, value etc.
When I attempted to glaze it I found I couldn’t do it, the hues were just too subtle. This was in the early stages of my learning the glazing technique and was beyond me at the time. So the glazed version was shelved for a good while. I have a bad habit of giving up on paintings when actually nearly all paintings are redeemable. As Camille Pissarro said though, you have to keep working until you get it right. When this happens paintings just end up marked ‘fail’ on the fail shelf, and they gnaw away at me. This is a weakness I am trying to overcome, and in that spirit I went back to this portrait and reworked it, specifically after looking at Bonnard. He is such a gorgeous painter who has a rare magical ability with colour, always surprising and new.
Looking at Bonnard fuelled the desire to just let go a bit and love colour, love painting again. Sometimes working on the grisaille technique has made me work in a narrow way and I felt I lost my earlier naive jollity. That’s not what I was taught though by Louis Smith amongst others, who all used many different colour hues when glazing. I just got to a point where I found a way that was working and stuck with it. Having said all that, I was happy with the grisaille paintings that I glazed, I just felt I wanted to let go a bit. It wasn’t working in this particular painting anyway, so I needed something different. I can’t just ape Bonnard in his beautiful loose technique, which you can see was always his sensibility when you look at his early work. I love colour but also love ‘polishing’ the drawing, which is something I get from my love of stone carving.
Here is a Bonnard self portrait to give an idea of what I mean.
Portrait painting step by step, glazing over grisaille
Posted on November 28, 2017
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 to view) and then the 5th glaze which is almost the last one. I still intend to go over the hair and background again, amongst other things. The hair really leant itself to glazing and turned a beautiful flame red with just two glazes. The background was a dark green the glaze before this! It still shows through and gives it a nice depth. The lovely thing about working in this way is that everything can change with just one glaze. This portrait has been through many stages. Sometimes I misjudged a colour or the tonal values – the lights and darks, weren’t right. In each case I was able to correct the painting in the following glaze, either lightening or darkening.
I love painting highlights in a portrait so I guess I overdid it somewhat and the lightest light ended up too bright by the 4th glaze, but in the latest glaze which you can see here I went over the whole portrait again with a darker glaze just to soften it a little. In areas where it was too dark again I just used a dry brush to pick off the paint and continue blending. I can always keep adjusting a portrait at a late stage if the client commissioning the portrait feels there is something that needs changing.
It is surprising just how close to the original grisaille the painting is, even when its possible to see how much refining and drawing has gone into the portrait over all the glazes. It’s strange to see later very finished versions of a portrait where the grisaille is like a ghost, still very present but disguised under veils and glazes of colour.
The grisaille functions like an anchor that holds the structure of the portrait in place, and many changes can occur but the painting is still held firmly together by the initial drawing. Drawing is king in art. Without this a portrait painting falls apart, and my paintings live or die by their drawing. If that has gone wrong somewhere reworking can be painful. And this is something you don’t want to have to do when working to commission. Its the main reason I started learning how to paint using the grisaille method. Apart from the sheer magic of it of course. Glazing oil is a truly magical process where we can breathe life into inert matter. Grisaille could stand for death, the shadow, truth. Colour glazes are like life, they are pure light. Together life and death make the whole. Like finding fire in a stone, or lighting up a cave that has been dark for a thousand years.
One thing to always bear in mind is to keep the underpainting slightly more uniform, with a narrow tonal scale. A tonal scale is a device used in academic art to show in stages the darkest dark moving to the lightest light. So her when I say narrow I mean there aren’t really dark darks or very light lights. This is something that we can add when we start glazing, and this is where the magic is. Here’s another example:
I’m just talking about the tonal range of the face in this example. I work the highlights and shadows in as glazes:
This was a very satisfying painting because in a few hours of glazing I could pretty much resolve the colour. This is because the drawing held everything together. I loved the eyes and they show the deeper darks and lighter lights after glazing. Nothing changes in the drawing, or if anything the drawing is strengthened with the glazes. Drawing never stops with every brushstroke.
I always use the same mixes when I paint portraits using the grisaille method. Here is another example video in my Bouguereau copy. All my glazes start with various quantities of the same colours: Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red, Raw Umber and Sap Green (a warm Sap Green). All the glazes are mixed with these colours but with additions, like Ultramarine Blue to cool it down, a bit of Titanium White to make a velatura or semi opaque glaze, some Cadmium Orange.. but always hovering around the same original mix. Of course this depends on the commission and the sitter.
If you are interested in having a portrait created using this grisaille and glazing technique, you can commission a portrait – I work in oil, pencil, marble and bronze, for clients across the UK and internationally.
Portrait painting in 3 stages: The grisaille, the 1st glaze, and the 5th glaze. The glazing process is the same each time, and the portrait just gets steadily refined as it progresses
Portrait painting from grisaille underpainting to fourth glaze
Posted on November 23, 2017
Here are a selection of photos showing the completed glazes done over the grisaille underpainting in this portrait commission.
The first layer, called a grisaille as its painted in grey, using Titanium White and Ivory Black
The first glaze which was painted in roughly an hour. This is the subject of a film in 4 parts, showing the 1st glaze being painted in oils
The second glaze, painted after a couple of days when the first glaze had fully dried. I use M. Graham’s Walnut Alkyd medium. The alkyd accelerates the drying, otherwise the oil takes at least a week to be dry enough to paint the next glaze.
The third oil glaze shows the colours getting richer. I continue to model the forms of the portrait while I paint the glazes.
4th glaze
Portrait painting video demonstration
Posted on November 21, 2017
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 the film I was looking for when trying to learn how to do it myself. Of course thats a process that never stops!
Portrait painting commission – grisaille layer waiting for the first glaze
Posted on November 2, 2017
This is the first stage, the grisaille. I will be posting a video of the first glaze in a few days. The sitter is the sister of the earlier portrait posted. I will be able to continue modelling the forms as I glaze. I have talked about this elsewhere but the drawing never stops while glazing is taking place, each glaze revealing new areas to develop in the painting. The grisaille is not perfectly formed but is enough to form an anchor for the rest of the painting. Hue or colour is in itself drawing and form and all the imperfections and flat areas are transformed with the glazes.
There are many different ways to make a grisaille underpainting; with black and white as here, or you can make a ‘verdaccio’ which is monotone green and white, or burnt umber and whites. In the future I would like to do some paintings with very limited palettes, like the Zorn palette which has Yellow Ochre, Black, red and white. Or like the one I used at school, Burnt Sienna, Cobalt Blue and White. Just thinking about it is so nostalgic and I fondly remember swimming in warm and cool tones back then.
Portrait of Ruby, grisaille painted in oils, Titanium White and Ivory Black
Oil painting demonstration: Glazing over grisaille – Portrait of Amy
Posted on October 23, 2017
This is Amy’s portrait, glazed in oil paints. I filmed myself doing this and it will shortly be on my youtube channel. Its still in the early stages, and when this layer is dry I’ll go over it again, up to 3 or 4 times. I don’t know if I’m going to film those other stages – they might be a bit boring as its just a lot of tinkering. In the early stages its quite dramatic how a few glazes of colour changes the grisaille into a very nearly finished portrait. Stay tuned! My portrait of Amy was commissioned. All enquiries can be sent via the commission a portrait page. Stay tuned!
Before and after glazing over grisaille. The first oil glaze took roughly an hour to complete. The grisaille underpainting was painted using Titanium White and Ivory Black oil paints, and the glazes are mixed from Alizarin Crimson, Raw Sienna, Cadmium Red, Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue and Sap Green, to name a few
Anna and Simon portrait
Posted on September 21, 2017
Anna and Simon final version
Anna and Simon progress 3 – refining details and adding glazes for depth. I was trying to be economical about the details of Simon’s jumper
Anna and Simon progress 2 – here I have blocked in all the areas of colour, like a ‘dead layer’
Anna and Simon progress 1- at this stage I abandoned the grisaille and worked colours straight onto the canvas
Here is a double portrait I worked on from a photo, to give an example of the process. I originally painted Anna in a grisaille, and went over the face in colour, having changed tack and wanting concentrate on a single opaque colour layer. It was worked into over a few sessions with additional glazes of colour.
In contrast I painted Simon’s face in colour directly onto primed canvas. I painted a ‘ground’ (or colour stain) on the canvas first, using a couple of coats of acrylic Burnt Umber. You can also see where I drew the grid. I had to leave some of the background unpainted so I could still follow the gridlines! It was one of those rare occasions where I was able to get the drawing right on the first attempt.
When the drawing doesn’t work I can spend many hours going back over the painting, needlessly, because if the drawing was all correct in the first place it wouldn’t have been a problem. Many bad experiences trying to fix paintings like this led me to use the grisaille method, because that is a great way of ensuring the drawing is right before attempting colour.
When I say drawing I’m talking about drawing with the paint. I’ve written about this before, especially here regarding the utmost importance of getting the drawing right first. Drawing is all of painting – figurative painting that is. That’s why even though I trained as a sculptor I could try painting portraits, because I had done a lot of drawing already. Working to commission means I need to make sure there’s no wasted effort.
Titian’s Ecce Homo – underpainting and glazing
Posted on August 7, 2017
This beautiful painting by Titian from the Prado Museum is the reason I wanted to try and learn the technique of painting with a grey layer, or underpainting in grisaille, a technique that Titian pioneered.
The flesh appears both taught, as if it was carved out of marble, and fluid at the same time. Titian painted this in Rome, and you can clearly see the influence of Michelangelo in the rendering of the forms and their monumentality. Another interesting fact is that he painted it on Slate. You can see the colour layers as applied over the grisaille and they seem to dance and flicker on the picture plane. It is as if Jesus Christ is illuminated from the inside, and the strokes of glaze glow like flames burning in a furnace. The cloth Christ is wrapped in has an extraordinary quality which maybe I could get to the bottom of by copying.
I don’t paint portraits with this kind of chiaroscuro and extreme passages of light to dark, but maybe I should. Chiaroscuro as seen here feels like it belongs in a different age, but it would be interesting to see if you could do it today, and make it something worth looking at, without pastiche.
These paintings of Christ on his way to the crucifixion were meant as devotional images, painted in such ways to elicit empathy from the viewer. You can feel the depth of Titian’s religious faith in this painting. There is more information on the Museo Del Prado’s website about it.
It feels a bit shallow chatting about it in this way, or that I’ve somehow understood it when I don’t think I have at all. Perhaps the only way to come to terms with it is to try and copy the painting, but the subject is so raw that personally I don’t think I can. I am able to admire this painting, but not as a devotional object and certainly only in a small way appreciate it in the way Titian intended. But as much as being a devotional object it is also celebrated because of the skill and grace he displayed in handling the paint after all. I do believe though that it was his religious faith that gave rise to his superlative technique here.
