Layering your paint. Do you know how?

One of the biggest things to learn, that seems to never be taught is layering paint. And using a definite procedure to do so.

You know, those great paintings you see in museums were not painting with just 1 layer of paint. This combining layers gives beginners a huge headache.

I was never taught this layering process in school. In fact in one class I was in, we used to paint by drawing outlines and carefully filling in these lines, modeling form as we go. We always used small soft haired brushes and would just mix a little and apply the paint using these very small brushes. Even when the canvas was very large. We would start in one little area and just lay the paint on inch by inch.

But, I knew from my visits to the museum that all the artists I admired didn’t paint this way.

I asked the instructor. “I can’t imagine Rubens or someone of his time painting like this. His paintings don’t show that he painted like this.” The teacher response was…”Oh well, he used a complex set of layers with glazing.”

“Bingo!” I thought to myself. “That’s what I want to learn”, I said.

The instructor  kind of chuckled and said “yeah yeah.”

And, I never was taught that complex layering method.

I was usually just left to plow along making mistakes and have the teacher tell me where they thought a mistake was.

You know, the ol’ method of teaching by pointing to your painting and saying…”this area is too dark” or “that part is too green”.

Somehow this was magically going to make me a better painter.

It never did of course.

Take a look at this:

This is an underpainting of a woman that is in the National Gallery in Washington D.C.

It is not by any truly famous painter.

I had to take a picture of the nameplate because I hadn’t heard of this painter before.

Van Ceulen was his name.

But look at how this “no name” painter knew his craft.

Ask yourself a question…

Do you think he was following some procedure for painting this picture – such as first making a monochrome underpainting…

Or do you think he was just muddling along with his teacher telling him “That hand is too big” or “Her head is too dark”?

He was using the layering process and it looks like the underpainting was just about complete.

Now began the process of overpainting.

Now, ask yourself another question…Would you know what to do next? How to begin the next layer?

Here is a pretty famous work by Vermeer. Do you think he knew what to do next?

Judging by the final work, I believe so. I think he understood the layering process very well and new just how to get from the image you see above, to a finished work like you see down below. And he could repeat this over and over again, with confidence, and without an instructor telling him to “make that hand darker”.

It doesn’t have to be a secret and you can finally know how to use layers the right way.

More Resources

For At Home Instruction on Layering:
Check out Ethan’s new DVD “Underpainting Solved”

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To End all your confusion about oil painting techniques and materials, check out Ethan’s newest At Home Training Program “Oil Painting Formula“

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Related posts:

1. how to paint detail and edges in a landscape part 2
2. Are your oil painting lessons helping you
3. How was that oil painting made part 2
4. What medium should I use?
5. Grandma helped me paint better

Tagged as: glazing, overpainting, paint layers, underpainting, vermeer