The painting above is called “Grandpa Genoa,” by Chris Griffith over at the Blog At Bree. On the site you’ll see his paintings from soup to nuts, step by step. You can learn a lot from his tutorials, complete with images of every step. Chris has allowed me to include this work here to help me show you an amazing painting technique.
The painting above is Chris’s grandpa Genoa Griffith, who served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army in WWII. It is his first portrait, and a very fine one. What’s so amazing about this painting? All the color in the picture is painted entirely in multiple layers of thin glazes.
What Is Glazing?
We all know that the Mona Lisa is probably the most famous and viewed painting in Western art. But did you know her mysterious smile was painted in about 40 ultra thin layers? Special effects such as this are what make the art of glazing a highly versatile and useful technique. Colors can achieve their true potential with glazing, with effects not possible with regular opaque painting.
Glazing is generally an oil painting method. It starts out with a gray-scale (grisaille) and one by one adding thin layers of singular colors, which over time begin to blend in the viewer’s eye, rather than blended on a palette. Generally, it is not for the impatient as each layer must completely dry before adding another. The layers are small amounts of color added to a medium- a mixture of 5 parts turpentine, 1 part linseed oil. It is important to remember to paint fat over lean, as in the first layers, underneath, must have less oil (more turpentine, etc.) than the layers on top. This allows for a uniform drying and won’t crack later on.
In a nutshell,
- Preparation includes stretching and priming your canvas (if not using store bought), and finalizing your drawings and plans.
- A wash is applied (a thin, neutral color such as yellow ochre, raw sienna, etc.)
- A sketch is made on the canvas in pencil or charcoal.
- An imprimatura, or ground, is applied to the canvas in thin layers roughly outlining the subject.
- A gray scale, or grisaille, is painted being sure to get the correct tone with shadows and highlights.
- Initial layers of color are added. These colors can be changed where necessary by adding colors on top, which can be optically mixed to form new colors. For example, a blue applied over top an already dried yellow layer will make a green. In Grandpa Genoa, a thin layer of yellow ochre is added to the shirt, and a background is added.
- As each layer is added, the colors get darker (which can be helpful when painting backgrounds in a landscape), so adding white can lighten where necessary and also begin to make highlights. Shadows are also added, which begin to make the subject three dimensional.
- Highlights are last, and final details are made. Each layer, anywhere from 3 to 30, helps to make a well-blended and realistic painting.
Of course there is more to it. But don’t take my word for it. Check out Chris’s tutorials of Grandpa Genoa, and his new project (link to Color Stage 1), where you can get a more detailed look, and see what’s going on in each step.
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