DEMONSTRATION
Monochrome Underpainting
After preparing my drawing, I began the painting by staining the white oil ground with a coat of Raw Sienna. (To accomplish this, mix your paint with turpentine and brush it evenly over the whole surface. After a few minutes, rub the paint off with a clean cotton rag. Old t-shirts work well for this.) Any one of a number of colors can be used for creating an imprimatura, but it must be a quick drying color, usually an earthtone. [raw or burnt sienna, raw or burnt umber, venetian red, or yellow ochre are examples] When painting in an indirect technique in oils one must always paint slower drying paints with higher oil content over the top of faster drying, low oil paints. This is known as painting fat over lean. This is needed because oil paints dry from the surface down. If a top layer dries more quickly than a layer beneath it, the expansion and contraction of the underneath layer will crack the drier top layer.
Once the imprimatura was dry, I transfered my drawing to the canvas. A transfer paper can be created by rubbing pastel chalk over a sheet of tracing paper, then rubbing it down with a Bestine*-soaked paper towel. This creates a chalk film on the paper. A transfer sheet of this type can last for years if cared for, transfering hundreds of drawings. It is best if some support, such as a book, is placed beneath the stretched canvas down upon which to press when tracing over your drawing. Trace with a hard lead pencil, such as a 2H, but be careful not to oversharpen the tip, or you may tear through your drawing.
Upon this drawing I began painting washes of darker tones to create the form using Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber. Normally a monochrome painting would use only one color; I have cheated a little here by using two brown pigments. While the entire painting is created in brown, I have adjusted both the value and temperature by combining a yellow brown, red brown and deep brown. Combined they will give me the warmth that I desire for the finished painting while allowing for variations as they relate to the final color.
*Bestine is a rubber cement thinner: read cautions carefully!
