Working on coloured grounds

This project asks us to complete both a tonal study on white ground, and a tonal study on a dark ground.  I have decided to attempt the same, simple still life for both exercises, using the same colours on both paintings, as I feel it will help me to really be able to analyse the differences between the two approaches.

I also decided to do a little research into the different coloured grounds used by artists as it can be difficult sometimes, just by looking at a final painting, to see how the artist began a painting, or whether a ground has been used.  I therefore turned to a folder I have “The Art of Drawing and Painting” which shows step-by-step techniques.  This contains a number of approaches to using coloured grounds, and their results:

The first is using a black background to depict white swans – not an approach which would immediately spring to mind!  However, the artist has done this to easier assess the many white tones in the swans and their reflections.  Thinking about this further, this is actually quite a sensible approach – trying to paint “white on white” is very difficult – you can’t see what you have already done, and painting varying shades of “white” can be quite taxing on the eyesight.  The artist has finished the painting by using dilute mixes of colour over the black background to depict dappled foliage and has lightened the immediate foreground slightly to show perspective.

The second (by artist Tod Ramos) uses a classical approach to using a coloured ground (burnt umber), followed by a monochrome underpainting and then modelling the forms.

The umber ground only really shows through in the thin paint used for the grass and on some areas of the horses but serves to give the painting an overall warm tone (even for the sky and clouds).

The third coloured ground I looked at was a still life of a silver teapot with white cloth, lemons and blue backboard (overall cool colours).  Yet the artist has chosen to use a fairly bright, reddish-brown ground (mixed by burnt umber, ultramarine and permanent rose) to give a warm overall tone and a colour contrast with the yellow and blue of the objects.

The ground here is clearly visible and permeates every part of the painting.

The last images I looked at was a painting created using a limited palette to depict an autumn landscape.

Again this used a bright ground – this time an orange created by mixing cadmium red, cadmium yellow and a touch of black) to give a very warm overall tone to the painting.  Although not as visible as on the last painting, the artist has used fairly dilute colours thinned with turps to allow the ground to show through all the other colours used.  The artist has also left quite large areas of the primed canvas bare to give a continuity throughout.