Assignment

Stage 4: Just to recap we have come all the way from our graphite study of this portrait through to blocking in the underpainting and now finally to the final layer. This final painting session for the grisaille section of this course will be split into two videos. The primary reason is that refinement and subtlety take time. We are going to work on pushing ourselves, and our paintings, to a level beyond where we thought we could go. All of the planning and preparation from the first two layers is just the platform that was needed to reach this next level!

1. Refreshing the lightest values in the painting is one way to maintain a sense of luminosity throughout the course of the painting. Here we are going to explore how we can use a technique called “scumbling” to help us do that.
2. Working with the dark half-tones on the painting is a sensitive and important part of realising this final stage of the process. We are going to be talking about the most efficient ways to tackle this challenging aspect of turning the form.
3. Finally we are going to be looking out for “red flags.” These are opportunities to check and double check our assumptions about the values and edges in our painting. Ever gotten that feeling that something is wrong but you’re not sure what? In this video I will show you some of the things that commonly are responsible for this phenomenon.