In comments, Julius writes:
David: In the beautiful work you show on your gallery, are most of the effects achieved with your “thick glazing” technique? I have been experimenting with thin glazes and have run into problems at every turn. For example: How to achieve an intense red or orange, since cadmium colors are out? How to glaze thinly and be able to do fabrics and tablecloths — especially in light colors? How to do a light color ceramic bowl (as in one of yours)? Maybe you could speak in detail about the work in your gallery…
Thanks for the kind words, Julius. Glazing is not my primary oil painting technique.* I tend to paint fairly opaquely most of the time, attempting to achieve the final look of each passage before moving to the next. I’m not dogmatic about that, however, and will go back over a passage, opaquely or transparently, if I didn’t get it right the first time.
I do use glazing for specific purposes. For example, the background of the self portrait in the gallery is yellow ochre glazed over white. Although YO is usually thought of as rather dull, its undertone has a very different character—much higher in chroma and value. That’s one great use of glazing: to avoid “chalkiness” (lowered chroma) at high values.
As far as intense red or orange, here’s how that was done historically. Start by painting that specific passage in a flat opaque color similar to your desired final hue. For example, you could use cadmium red light (historically, this would have been vermilion, which behaves similarly to cad red). Let it dry. Then glaze over it with a similar transparent color such as alizarin crimson (which is fugitive) or pyrol ruby (which is not). Make this second color thick where you want it dark and thin where you want midtones or lights. If desired, paint into the lights with the same or similar colors mixed with white. Let it dry. If the darks are not dark enough, apply another layer of glaze to those areas, perhaps darkened with another transparent color such as ultramarine blue. Over two or three layers, you can get the darks as strong as you like, in a higher chroma than you can get without glazing. I’ve tried this, and it works. For orange, you are limited in glazing colors, but hansa yellow mixed with any of the modern transparent organic reds or crimsons can work.
Does this method allow you to get any color you wish? No, it does not. You are limited to available shades of transparent pigments. But the Old Masters were even more limited, and they didn’t make junk.
As for fabrics, this method works quite well if you have the patience for it. Be prepared to go back into the lights, while the glaze layer is still wet, with opaque colors mixed with white.
Ceramics are easy. For a white ceramic glazed with blue, just paint the object without the blue and allow to dry. Ultramarine or other semi-transparent blues glazed on top are quite convincing (that’s how I did the ceramic cup in the “Three Cherries” painting in my gallery).
This would be easier to show than to tell, but I hope this is helpful.
*In part that’s due to the influence of my teacher, Dennis Cheaney. Dennis is a student of Ted Set Jacobs, who long ago rejected glazing in his own painting method, because he believes it makes it more difficult to precisely control hue, value, and chroma. I don’t paint the same way that Dennis and Ted do (nor nearly as well), but the vast majority of my formal instruction has been in a direct painting style.
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