The Mark of Summer..! (student work)

It's been lovely getting back into teaching after a break away. This week its been busy in the studio, with a couple of childrens classes as well as my Thursday bunch. One of the adult students, Mark,  decided to try his hand at the grissaile method of painting, which is a black and white underpainting in oils, followed by the colour layers on top.

Day 1, the grissaile underpainting, completed

The first stage after setting up the objects, was a tonal drawing, which was then transferred onto the canvas board. Mark spent the rest of the day carefully using the black and white to turn form on the apples, with the gray scale beside him to remind him... 

Day 2, colour layering over the dry grissaile

One week later, the underlayer was dry, and he put the colour on top. It is hard to feel the benefit of the underpainting when laying down strong colour (ie the reds), but he soldiered on - blind faith goes a long way. And to quote Mark himself, 'sure, what could possibly go wrong..?' 

End of day 2 - first colour layer completed. 

The underpainting really came into its own on the chopping-board - Mark painted over the chopping-board with a thin (fairly transparent) layer of yellow ochre, and same on the shadows of the apples. The whole thing was unified, with very little work. Win win! A great exercise, very well executed. (Though maybe one more layer will be needed to finish it off. But I won't tell Mark yet...)

Up-coming courses - landscape in water colour, portrait drawing and four day oils workshop with PJ Lynch. Enail julie@juliedouglas.co.uk for info