My Painting Process: Stage One

Okay, so here is a bit of a guide to the process I go through when painting. This post will cover stage one, which is basically the under painting and blocking in of the underlying colours. The picture I will demonstrate with is a commission of two grandchildren to be completed in oils on canvas.

Materials used:

• Oil Paints: Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red, French Ultramarine, Titanium White and Black
• A3 Box Canvas, White
• Oil Brushes (small and medium sized)
• Mix of one part white spirit and six parts water
• HB Pencil
  

First of all I mixed a cream coloured paint to cover the canvas and take away the harsh lighting of the background.

Next I drew a basic outline of the two children. To do this I first marked onto the original photograph the head and shoulders of the children using the pencil. I then split the original picture into quarters and split the faces of the children into sixths (a line down the middle splitting the faces via the centre of the nose and then three horizontal lines through the eyeline the nose and the mouth of the children). This 'gridding up' process simplified the drawing process and helped me to add the smaller details on the faces, as I coppied across the grid I created on the photograph.

I always draw a very basic outline, this frees up my painting and makes the process less clinical. I mark out the shoulders, head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth and the collar and edges of clothes. I always take time with the outline however as any mistakes at this point can reflect greatly once the paint is laid on and can often be difficult to fix at the later stage of applying the oils.

Next I look at the underlying tones of the skin hair and clothes. These tones are usually strongly highlighted colours/shades that appear briefly in the images and appear to 'come through' from the background.

So for the skin a light cream colour shone in the highlights of the girls cheeks so I painted in a light cream colour. The same process was applied with the reddy brown color appearing though the hair and the bright white highlight illustrated in the girls' clothing.

The reason for doing this is to firstly create a base to paint on. Secondly to bring the colours through in the finished painting, to the same degree that they appear on the original photograph.

I also believe there is a third reason for doing this. It applies personally to me and I think it would apply to other artists; if you fill the canvas with these blocks of colour it starts the layering process and is the alternative to working from top left to bottom right as many artists do. I believe the layering process psychologically is a more satisfying method of completing a picture as it covers the canvas completely and slightly prevents the all intimidating blank areas of a canvas - it relieves the pressure of looking at what you haven't yet done!

So the first stage of painting is completed. Tomorrows post will cover the next stage of the painting process.