Underpainting

After I finished the community ed pastel painting class I realized that I needed a lot more than just a few night classes. So I looked for books and online sources of instruction. Just about every resource I found put an emphasis on doing underpaintings. I watched some previews of Artists Network presentations by Liz Haywood Sullivan on You Tube and was fascinated by how she made underpaintings with pastel and alcohol. Later I found some great You Tube videos of Leesa Padget painting, set to great background music (highly recommended!). I thought "I need to try this!" So I did, and I have been hooked ever since.

Pastel and Alcohol Underpainting on Pastelbord

Pohoiki Bay, near Hilo Hawaii; pastel on Ampersand Pastelbord over pastel/alcohol underpainting

This is one of the first paintings I did with a pastel and alcohol underpainting. This is also the first painting I did on Ampersand Pastelbord, and I must say I love this surface. It is great for any wet media underpaintings, plus I love how it grabs the pastels. 

 Watercolor Underpainting on Pastelbord

watercolor underpainting on Ampersand Pastelbord

Finished painting

Pastel and alcohol underpaintings are great, but I really wanted to try watercolor. I found a photo taken at Monet's Giverney in the Wet Canvas reference image library that I really wanted to paint, so I took a stab at it. The result is above. I found that I really love using watercolor for underpainting. I am not a watercolor painter, so I just block in the major areas of the painting with watercolor, not worrying about fine details.So far I haven't strayed too far from the "local" colors when painting the underpaintings. If I'm lucky I can keep some of the watercolor uncovered by pastel in the finished product. Even if I do cover it with pastel, just working out the composition with the watercolor makes the painting process a lot easier.

Watercolor Underpainting on Wallis

watercolor underpainting on Wallis Museum sanded paper

finished painting

This is another watercolor painting, this time on Wallis Museum. This surface was a little more resistant to the watercolor but still handled it well.

Watercolor Underpainting on Art Spectrum Supertooth

watercolor underpainting on Art Spectrum Supertooth

finished painting

The watercolor flowed quite nicely on the Supertooth. I was able to control the water plus reflections and the shading on the rocks in the foreground quite nicely.