Demo in Indirect Painting II

I recently took part in a group paint-out where over one hundred artists painted live and gave demonstrations on painting in every style, media and subject matter you can imagine.  Because I am an indirect painter I have to plan ahead for demonstrations and prepare several different panels showing the different stages of layering in oil.  

For a more detailed demonstration in glazing see HERE

I began my demo on a panel with my drawing already transferred and ready to be painted.  I started by preparing a glaze of yellow ochre over the entire panel and drawing.  Next I painted into the lights with opaque white, and added darks and shadows with burnt umber, keeping the shadows thin and transparent.

My second panel for the demonstration had the completed underpainting (above) dry and ready for the next layer of paint.  I began again by glazing the panel in transparent color and painting my opaque color into the glaze on the subject matter.  Now that I have switched to the first color glaze I still keep my lights opaque and shadows thin and transparent.  My values are close together so I can build up more light and shadow after this layer dries with more transparent glazes and opaque scumbles.

 

After several more passes of transparent glazes and opaque scumbles the painting is complete.

"Oriole and Pear"  11x14

Demo in Indirect Painting

Welcome!  I am an oil painter residing in New Mexico.  I use an indirect style of painting based on Flemish and Venetian methods; I paint in layers of transparent glazes and opaque scumbles to produce a painting.  I have done extensive research over the years on classical glazing techniques.  This is a very time consuming way of painting, each layer must dry completely before the next can be applied.  The final results create a very beautiful paint quality, quite unlike painting done wet-in-wet with paint mixed directly from the tube.  I thought I'd begin my blog with the following basic demonstration in layering paint and glazing to illustrate my current painting style, this painting is from 2009.   

1. rough sketch on gessoed panel in charcoal 

 2. burnt umber glaze and opaque white on subject matter to clean it up. 

 3. a glaze of burnt umber and ultramarine in shadow, ochre on subject matter. 

 I like umbers and ochres because of the warmth as opposed to grisaille.

4. Introduced cad. yellow and more opaque colors in the lighted areas.  There should be a balance of opaque/transparent areas and an awareness of warm/cool areas.  blend blend blend  Warm transparent glazes help the backround recede, cool opaque white on subject come forward. White will always cool a color, cadmiums warm. I also mix and use my own version of paint similar to Naples yellow light which is a balanced warm light.

 5. deepening of colors, texture starting to appear.  Opaque paint reflects the light hitting the painting, light travels through transparent areas.  The play of light across surface of the painting helps define form within the painting itself. 

 6. adding more details. overall this is a very warm painting which has a lot of color harmony because I used a limited palette.  

finished painting