A grisaille painting is painted entirely in shades of grey. This style is often used when making a painting of classical sculpture or as the underpainting for an oil painting that will be finished with coloured glazing layers over the monochrome painting. Grisaille painting has a very long historical tradition and was used often for medieval panel painting.
German oil painter Dirk Schmitt lets us look over his shoulder as he paints a grisaille using his favourite Schmincke Mussini finest artists´ resin-oil colours. For this particular painting he will be starting with a colour-toned ground which will be left visible in some parts so there will be a small amount of colour in the finished grisaille. (‘Grisaille’ is pronounced gri-sigh and rhymes with ‘Versaille’.)
Grisaille painting ‘Mousetrap’ with Mussini resin-oil colours
with Dirk Schmitt
Materials that Dirk Schmitt uses:
Pre-primed canvas (For an absorbent surface you can prepare your own linen canvas and prime with one layer Schmincke Transparent Primer as well as three layers Schmincke Primer 1, allowing all layers to dry in between)
• Da Vinci Maestro 2 oil brush in different sizes, one flat brush
• Schmincke Mussini oil colours: Brown Pink, Atrament, Brownish Grey 1 and Norma Professional Neutral Black
• Schmincke Flake White Hue oil colour
• Schmincke Mussini Medium 3 – accelerates drying
• An object to be painted, here: an old mousetrap
• Palette
• Small container for the painting medium and cloths
Preparation:
If you use pre-primed canvas, please make sure that the surface is strongly absorbent. This is very important for an oil painting. If necessary you can add absorbency by adding more coats of primer.
Dirk Schmitt tones the canvas with an imprimatura, an initial stain of transparent colour painted onto the primed canvas, using Neutral Black thinned with Mussini Medium 3 (drying accelerator). This layer has to dry completely (min. 1 week). Dirk prepares several canvases in advance with primer and imprimatura to have them ready.
Next he paints a thin, glazing colour layer using Mussini Brown Pink thinned with Mussini Medium 3 (accelerates drying). You can go on with painting directly into the wet colour layer.
He next makes a rough sketch of the subject using Mussini Atrament and a fine daVinci Maestro 2 flat brush in size 10.
Continuing with thea rough sketch.
He then fills the different areas of the subject with several mixtures of Atrament and Brownish Grey 1, all thinned with Mussini Medium 3. Mixing these two colours you will achieve many different grey shades from very light to very dark grey. Thus, the contrasts of light and shadow areas will become clearly visible.
Continuing to fill the different areas of the subject with several mixtures of Atrament and Brownish Grey 1, all thinned with Mussini Medium 3.
Next he paints the background in different grey shades, too. The upper part will be painted darker than the lower part. For a perfect colour gradient you have to blend the colours softly into each other. Oil colours are ideally suited for this technique. Some smaller areas will be left unpainted, so that the underpainting remains visible which leads to a subtle chromaticity.
Dirk adds the final highlights in the foreground using Schmincke Flake White Hue which is perfectly suited due to its opaque character and its pasty consistency. All the painting standards for sound oil painting structure have now been fulfilled: the colours are applied from dark to light, fat over lean, and from glazing to opaque.
Dirk Schmitt is a German artist from Cologne and a painter in the contemporary realism style.
Colouring with Glazes
If you wish to use the grisaille as an underpainting and continue painting it afterwards with coloured glazes, it is best if you let the grisaille dry almost completely. To glaze colour you will need to thin the Mussini paints with a small amount of Transparent paint medium and apply in thin layers. Choosing transparent pigments (rather than opaque earth colours) also helps let the underpainting shine through and the tonal composition remains visible. The effect of light and dark shades, combined with soft colour impressions, gives this way of painting a special look.
