GRISAILLE

CONTEMPOEARY ART USING MASTER'S STYLE

- MIKE LEARN

Here is the completed underpainting for a recent project. Notice all the values from black to bright white. The color makes no difference at this point. What is important is the composition, balance, perspective, and contrast. A painting should have all those items established completely and correctly before going into color. You cannot correct a problem in the underpainting with color - you will only make the problem worse.

The Three Attributes of Color = Hue + Value + Intensity

Painting in this style, with underpainting and the transparent application of color, mitigates the need for a lot of color mixing. By simply doing color washes of your hue over the underpainting that has established your value, and varying your intensity by the amount of paint put down, you will have completed your color (less the detail) and should have successfully avoided the dreaded “Pigment Panic.”

Grisaille is a term that is used to describe the process of creating a piece of art in a single color, constructing all features by carefully establishing a wide range of values across the composition. When the grisaille method is used to establish an underpainting, the final result should resemble a sculpture with fine detail and considerable contrast between deep shadows and bright highlights.