Oil lesson 3: Mona Liza~ monochromatic opaque underpainting

Last Saturday I felt like I was getting to know Mona Liza really upclose and personal~

I scrutinized every inch of her face until even now I can even visualize her in my mind….and due to the close scutiny, to both Ms Shia and my surprise we both discovered that she actually was wearing a gauze veil on her head…mmmm Interesting indeed!

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Technique : Painting Mona Liza using monochromatic opaque underpainting on white ground

The lesson was to concentrate on the form and tonal value of the face using one color i.e vandyke brown and mixing with white to get the mid range tones.

Step 1 : mix the vandyke brown with white to get some half tones and apply these to the areas where there are shadows following the contours of the face, paying

careful attention to the eye sockets, cheeks, nose , lips and brow areas.

Step 2 : fill out the left overs with pure white, NO blending….just block in the colors.

To make sure that I followed this rigidly, Ms Shia hovered over me like a mother hen :)

Well, first draft of my Mona looked like she was of Asian origin, very voluptuous and looking very post natal ! Hahaha

OMG I cannot imagine how we were gonna achieve any similiarity to Mona Liza's face with all the blotchy spots all over!!

Step 3: Ms Shia told me to watch the magic as she used a medium fan brush and lightly fan Mona Liza's face ~ incredibly the colors blended so naturally, wow it was indeed magical!

Step 4 : Ms Shia then handed the fan brush and told me to finish the job…and horrors I actually made Mona Liza's face full of scratches !

Ms Shia goes "AIYA, cannot simply chincai bongcai sapu her face any direction you like !!"

Hahaha, the key was to imagine stroking Mona's face as if I was applying powder or blusher….

Oh ok, hahaha.

Believe you me, that made a heck of a big difference indeed.

Also with the right stroke of the fan brush, apparently we could make Mona Liza appear fatter or leaner just be slightly altering how the cheek bones flow or by adjusting the strokes above her bosom….ooooh, interesting!

I cant wait to see how we will glaze and restore Mona to full color spectrum after I finish off painting all the tonal values on her clothes and the background and let the paints dry .

Stay tuned for future lessons update to see how my Mona turns out in early August because before we can glaze, all the layers of underpaint have to be thoroughly dried!

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Since I still had so much more paint left over, I decided to just for the heck of it also practise on a more contemporary beauty….a Dior model in Her World magazine ;P

Oil Lesson 1~ basics on white ground, monochromatic

this is totally foreign territory to me….

* 6 basic tubes of oil colors

* 2 palette knife

* wooden untreated palette

* bottle of turpentine

* bottle of paint medium

I have never touch oil painting so I dont even know what all the simple tools are for ~ -- dont even know how to mix the paint with the palette knife

- dont know how to wield the brushes to block, blend

- dont know what the paint medium is for

- dont know why turpentine is needed

- and after I learnt that one use of turpentine was to clean the brushes, hahaha, I even had to ask Ms Shia to show me how it is done…hahaha, hilarious morning indeed!

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Technique : Painting on white ground, monochromatic

Step 1. - we had to first prepare the palette with a layer of medium so that it wouldnt absorb the oil from the paints

Step 2. - our subject matter was the ceramic vase which we were told to sketch onto the canvas with graphite or color pencils , carefully capturing all the different shapes of light and shadow in every detail including reflections

Step 3. today we are supposed to only paint in vandyke brown using zinc white to mix the shades, so we were told to squeeze the 2 colors onto the palette taking care to keep them separate …. this was for a simple reason that at the end of the day , any unused pure colors could be scooped back into the tube again! aaaah, common sense logic. :P

Step 4. first we painted a 5 value scale to be our guide for the respective shadings of the vase, the original blue color being the middle shade

Step 5. I find that I had to paint the different areas using small tiny strokes, making sure to poke the paint into every inch of the linen groove…..my my, very time consuming indeed. Here there is none of the let yr feelings go wild moments like in watercolor.... Every stroke is calculative and with a purpose….mmmm.

Step 6. I also find it tedious to wait for each shade to dry before blending but it was important , otherwise as I found out the hard way…yucks, be prepared for all the white to end up turning muddy!

P/S: wow, oil painting needs load of patience, even more so than water coloring

Step 7 - am told the final layer was glazing which can only be done after the paints have dried thoroughly, I shld find out how its done in the 2nd lesson….whoopee , cant wait for tomorrow! correction, glazing will only be learnt after the 4th lesson so that all of the 4 pieces can be done at one go? mmmmm

Here in the shots of my uber cool classmates : Jess and Andrea , take note they have got newspapers carefully lined under their canvas…..

Well, that didnt help me much!

I managed to get all shades of vandyke browns and whites everywhere over both my arms, it was a miracle I didnt end up smudging paints all over my face ^_^.

I'm gonna have to wear my apron next lessons~ hahaha

Whats my overall first impressions so far?

Very very interesting , alot to learn, shld be fun….Im just wondering how awfully long its gonna take me to fly???