Grisaille work in progress

Sorry about the very long delay since the last post. That’s for two reasons:

• I’ve been very busy with work, helping to raise a three year old, and  taking an online graduate course.
• I’ve been finishing up the large commission I started over the summer, and I have allowed that to kind of block my ability to do other painting. That’s just about done, however, so it’s time to move on.

I had a whole day off today, so I took the opportunity to start a new painting.

This is “Layover.” It’s 20 × 20”, oil on linen primed with lead white, toned with red earth and raw umber. This is a monochromatic underpainting—a grisaille—which will be glazed over once it’s dry. I used various mixtures of Doak’s flake 1c and Natural Pigments black earth (an iron oxide black).

The key is a little too dark for optimal glazing (since glazes tends to darken what they cover). That means I’ll need to paint into the glaze with white to get the lights up.

I’ll keep you posted on this, and I’ll try not to let such a long time pass before putting up other stuff. Unfortunately, posting will probably be intermittent for the foreseeable future.