Skills Corner: The Underpainting
From intuition-based painting to rigorously planned compositions, artists work in different ways. Yet across styles, many establish what is called an "underpainting" at the beginning of a new project. The underpainting of the artwork refers to its initial layers. An underpainting can be understood as a first compositional sketch or the foundational marks of a painting, inevitably becoming invisible or partially so as the painting progresses. In this blog post, I write about the underpainting as a guideline, why it matters, and the techniques I use to set myself up for a successful finished painting.
Negative Space: A Way of Seeing
Recently, I decided to pause work on a painting because I felt stuck. A garden scene with lots of shapes and colours, it had been going well but as I progressed, something felt off. It could have been the depth: not enough? Or the colours of the flowers: were there too many? I needed to slow down, focus, and think about what was going on in the painting. I thought back to essential drawing techniques and specifically about the important role of negative space. In this post, I write about this basic drawing technique, how it is a way of seeing, and why it is essential to my practice.
Commissioned Paintings: How I Work
Recently, most of my studio practice has been devoted to commissioned paintings. In an earlier post, I wrote about the joys of working on commission. In this post, I share my updated process of working on commission, including how I communicate with collectors, and what I’ve learned after working on many such projects.
