Underpainting: so many choices! No right or wrongs, just different effects.

Swing! oil, 20"h X 40"w, with red underpainting, also oil. 

Many years ago, a student gave me a wonderful photo of her daughter swinging. It's just my kind of thing. The figure, in a challenging position, giving the effect of huge fun, full of colour and play. Like many artists, I have a huge collection of images, and sometimes it just takes a lot of time to get to them all. 

So I thought I'd give a little explanation of what happened here, in the evolution of what if? with this image. 

It all started with the large amount of intense and varied greens, everything on the spectrum from blue greens to yellow greens. I've noticed in my extensive work as a plein air painter, that you need a few tricks when working with greenery. This was a studio piece, but plein air informs studio work. I think of plein air as the training and foundation. Plein air gives you spontoneity, easy light choices, and opportunity to try things and learn. From this learning, came the idea of making an underpainting in reds. Warm red at the upper left (cad red medium), fading to cool and darker red, lower right (alizaron crimson). 

What I've observed in past paintings, is that by contrasting pure reds against a host of greens, I can add a lot of fullness and colour harmony to the overall effect, which I thoroughly enjoy. Also, with the structure in place, it's very easy for me to add a little blue and purple in the lower right, and a few different yellows in the upper left. A rainbow of pure pallette. 

 

Swing!, pastel, 12" h X 24"w, with raw sienna underpainting, in oil, on Uart 400 sanded pastel paper. 

This was a demo piece I had the pleasure of painting for SOYRA and RHGA on March 10nth. We didn't quite have enough time to finish, so I promised more images as the piece progressed. The medium is different, (pastel), but the underpainting is quite different. In my work in underpainting, Many students read an artcile that outlines one artists method for creating an underpainting-You know all thos DIY art mags? They are very informative, I'm not knocking them, but there are SOOO many approaches to underpainting, and no right answer about how to do it, which colour it should be. There are no right and wrongs, just different effects created through different choices. 

With that in mind, I wanted to see what would happen with a much bright underpainting. Basically, the first one supports the value system already in place. The 2nd one contrasts against the value system, creating a light overall appearance. Making the light areas more prominent. In fact, when I wrote this, I hadn't included all the lights I wanted and feel the second piece could go much lighter. That's one of the reasons I wanted to try it. Although I do like the intensity of the oil painting, I wondered what the image would look like in a much lighter value range. 

I thought by presenting the two pieces this way, you can observe the different effects. Now, it's just up to me to decide which one is more in tune with my original idea and inspiration.