Valuable Grisaille

©2012 R.L. Delight, Duet closed grisaille in progress.

As I promised in my last post, I took the painting off the easel where I was unable, due to the huge loom currently in my studio, to get a picture of the painting straight on. This is not perfectly straight on but pretty close. When I left of painting last, the cornet, which I had left for last, needed a lot more work to get it right. I decided I would start in on the closed grisaille with the cornet. It isn't what I would usually do as I tend to work with the big shapes first before moving down to smaller shapes but the cornet is particularly challenging. Not only is there a really nice bit of foreshortening, but the tubing gradually narrows as it coils and bends from the bell of the cornet to the mouthpiece. My light source is actually coming from below the table and from the right side of the painting. It isn't focused dead center on the bell of the horn but much of the light falls there. The horn is silver metal so it lights up quite nicely. Even so, the value wasn't as light as one would think, nor is it the lightest light (not counting highlights). My light source is also a warm light and the bell of the horn glows warmly in spite of the cool silver metal. The rest of the cornet is somewhat shadowed behind the bell and definitely grows cooler as it recedes. It still needs tweaking but here is a close up of the roughed in cornet:

©2012, R.L. Delight, Duet grisaille in progress, close up.

I have not added any highlights yet. They will be added toward the finish of the painting. I need to refine the shape of the bell and the tubing a bit, work on the mouthpiece, and correct the angle of the valves, which I noticed were off the last time I passed the painting and set up and looked. 

After I finish with the cornet I will move on to the larger shapes again. 

I am experimenting with a bit of a different approach than I usually take. When I was working in fiber (weaving and spinning), I was a workshop assistant for a color and fiber class. We used Color-aid papers to do our exercises, one of which was to make a gray scale or value card. The other day I decided to make a five value scale and a nine value scale as well to use as a tool in determining the values of my set up. Here is a photo of the value scales:

Value scales

 The bottom one was the one I made in the fiber workshop in the late 1990's. As you can see, it is looking a little stained and battered. It has 18 values with the white being 0. The middle chart is the nine and the top is five values. 

For the grisaille, I am using the five value chart. The cornet actually falls in the three middle values. I pre-mixed three warm brown/grays and three cool brown/grays to match those values. Doing all that really helped me to focus on the value relationships, which is what a grisaille is supposed to do. I am going to continue to use the five value scale for the rest of the closed grisaille, comparing the value relationships as I paint.

That is where I am at on the painting. Tomorrow I will be back in the studio working away. 

I have to add that today my mate and I are celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary. We have a lovely day planned. 

Progress to be shown in the next post! 

Until then, 

-Renee