A White Rose For England

This is a grisaille done in Raw Umber and White. I underpainted first with acrylic washes then added the oil over it. I'm using Winsor & Newton Artisan oils. I like them.

As you can see the composition changed a little in the figure. The little girl will now be holding a white rose behind her back. The rose is symbolic of a small protest group in Germany called 'The White Rose' during WW2. The painting is 49 X 64 in. My original idea was to leave some of the grisaille showing after I added color but on a smaller more complete painting the raw Umber looks a little dirty. Not the effect I was going for. My next grisaille will be done in burnt Sienna I think. Anyway I'll either paint over this entirely with color or just paint color into the little girl and leave the rest as is. Not sure yet.

Tommy, Your painting is looking fantastic! I'm looking forward to your next update. I'm sure no matter which way you go it's going to be wonderful. I'm just amazed at the underpainting. Thank you for sharing your progress!

Thanks Janet. I know you've seen this WIP at another site but maybe others here haven't so I brought it over. I've been practicing on smaller paintings. I don't want to blow this large one.

fascinating to see all your steps - what incredibly detailed work you do. It must take forever for such a sizeable canvas!

I like the idea of having the girl in colour and the rest monochrome.

This is amazing! It looks like an old, sepia photograph. Maybe you could paint the girl in color to see how that looks so you can then decide if you want to add color to the rest?

Thanks Sofie and thanks for the input. I might do that.

Callie, I've been working on another smaller landscape and I'm a bit disapponted over how the raw umber shows through the color. It looks antique or in need of a cleaning - something like that. Not what I expected. I'll post it tomorrow and see what you guys think.

Tommy, Seeing the smaller landscape should help a lot in seeing the affect you're mentioning and provide suggestions.

Here's the smaller piece. Let me know what you think.

It has the look of intense summer sun/heat. I like it! I love the way you do the trees/leaves. So I'm no help, I think it's coming along very well!

A few things I've learned when doing an underpainting if you're applying your colors thinly with medium or using transparent colors glazing it's near to impossible to get luminous colors if your underpainting is either the same value or darker. Two things you might want to try more opaque colors and little to no medium with your paint. One other thing that I've noticed is the pressure that you use when applying the paint can affect to which degree the underlying layers affect the subsequent layers. Using a lighter touch can ensure that the paint rides on top of the previous layer and doesn't affect the saturation as much. I would do rows of squares of different values with the same color and medium used for the underpainting and test what works.

BTW I do like what you've done so far in your small landscape and I don't see it as looking dirty. Realisticly I think that nature rarely has high intensity colors the only exception being flowers.

I really like the way the trees and leaves are rendered. The colours don't appear dirty to me either.

Thanks for the input ladies. I like what showing through the clouds but the corners are bothering me a little. I'll sit on it. Maybe I'll think differently later.

Janet, good suggestions! I love dragging my brush over the canvas lightly - getting that texture and letting some of the underpainting come through. Some of the clouds were done like that. Most of the sky is painted with more pressure as is the leaves. I generally don't use medium. I did on the hills in bg. I'm still learning.

The grisaille is truly amazing - I've seen it in the other forum and it still blows me away seeing it again. There is something about the image of that little girl and the airplane that is haunting. I liked the image of her running and either throwing a toy plane or trying to touch a real one, the ambiguity of it. But it sounds like the white rose is significant for you so you should go with that. I'm sure it will be stunning piece. I don't have a whole lot of advice on the other one. I don't work with so much detail, so I'm out of my league... you do set a mood. Keep experimenting, you are producing impressive work!

Repainted the sky then color corrected the image to match (on my monitor anyway) what I'm seeing on my easel.

Tommy I love it! I can see where you filled in the sky more and it looks great!

Tommy,

I marvel at the detail you have put in the "white Rose" painting. I thought I was a detail person, but just looking at all the buildings and ship in the background is amazing.
Judy