Sunday, November 22, 2020

Using a Yellow Underpainting

Starting with a yellow underpainting puts "fire in the belly" of a gray painting.


The yellow layer is made up of a thin layer of casein brushed on in advance of the plein-air session. 


The underpainting gets mostly covered up by opaque or semi-opaque paint, but it manages to peek through in a few places.

 This YouTube excerpt is from my new Gumroad tutorial "TRIADS

Art Materials 

5 comments:

Mitch M. said...

Awesome painting James! I am certainly inspired by your work,Thank you.
You also answered a question that i was going to ask about using tinted gesso as a underpainting. I have tinted white casein also but it took quite a while to dry.(three plus days)
I refer to "Color and Light" weekly, a great instructional book and purchased "Dinotopia" for the grandkids with the hope of inspiring them as well.
Thanks again!

Pat said...

Hi, James! This was great. Every winter (I am in Wisconsin so one needs a plan to get through winter)I try to work on something that will help my plein air painting once it warms up again. It came to me that working with triads and limited palettes is just what I need. Besides oil and watercolor I also use pastels and notice that when painting with them I have a tendency to use too many colors, esp saturated colors and not enough neutrals. So I'll be watching your Triad tutorial today and will make limited palettes a focus of this winter's studio work. It is just what I need now. As usual, 'when the student is ready the teacher appears'. Thanks SO much for all your expert teaching and advice. Stay warm and well!

Jonathan said...

newbie question: the Light Red and Yellow Ochre paints linked in the supply list are listed as watercolor while the other two are listed as gouache. is this intentional? is opaque watercolor used interchangeably with gouache?

James Gurney said...

Jonathan, yes, you can use them in combination and interchangeably.

Virginia Rinkel said...

Thanks James for this video of the yellow underpainting. I have a whole set of casein I ordered a couple years ago, and now I've just ordered a set of 12 gouache. I have only used watercolors in the past, but would like to experiment with these and your Triad - love the idea of fewer paints - which will unify the overall look and make it easier on myself. You are an inspiration. Thank you.