Learning To Paint Like The Masters - Part 1

I’m taking a kind of “back to basics” class.  We first stretched and primed our own canvas’ and then laid in a ground.  The ground was a glaze using a mixture of yellow ochre and raw umber for a nice warm gold.  I’m now working on the “imprimatura” stage of the painting, using burnt umber.  From Wikipedia - Imprimatura is a term used in painting, meaning an initial stain of color painted on a ground. It provides a painter with a transparent toned ground, which will allow light falling onto the painting to reflect through the paint layers.  Its use as an underpainting layer can be dated back to the guilds and workshops during the Middle Ages, however it comes into standard use by painters during the Renaissance particularly in Italy.

Imprimatura Layer

Next I work on the “dead layer" - the next step of the classical Flemish technique, also called the Gray Layer.  I paint over this layer with white and various shades of gray.  Stay tuned.