Painted Palette Student Highlights and Other News

Debbie Manning painting in Grisaille 

Debbie Manning's granddaughter, Caroline- photo and grisielle 

Debbie's development of the underpainting

Debbie begins glazing process of Caroline's jacket

Debbie Manning is painting a portrait of her granddaughter, Caroline by painting a grisaille underpainting (monochromatic). 

Grisaille under paintings can be in brown or grey or in this case terre verte (green)'. When she has completed the underpainting she will begin to add the dead color. 

Layers of dead color will be applied in opaque and transparent colors. The dead layers are muted and have a limited color range. As the painting progresses and each layer is dry, a full range of color can be applied if desired. 

This Classical painting technique has a glowing quality and also makes the overpainting much easier to accomplish. Shadows are kept transparent and the lights are applied thicker as they progress to the highlights.

This method, also known as indirect painting is easily modified for today's painting and the results produce a unique optical quality that is different than direct painting.