Underpaintings: Imprimatura and Grisaille Explained

If you're a new painter looking to understand terms related to underpaintings that look like Greek to you: I have you covered! We're going to have a look at all the foreign terms related to that first layer of painting that I can think of, and delve deeper into the most common two: Imprimatura and Grisaille.

Underpaintings

Let's start at the beginning: What is an underpainting? Put simply, an underpainting is a first layer of paint. It's what's literally under the painting.

You might be thinking, "No $#!+ Lacey, but what's the purpose of this layer?

The purpose of underpaintings are on a broad spectrum: At one end they can serve just as a toning of the canvas and rough sketch for where shapes will be placed in successive layers, and at the other extreme these are fully realized monochromatic paintings done in preparation for transparent color to be laid over the top.

Imprimatura

An imprimatura is the most common type of underpainting, and the first one you will encounter in Foundations of Oil Painting. They are done with a dark brown earth color, like burnt umber, with a solvent (mineral spirits, OMS, turpentine) to make the paint thinner and more transparent. Value is controlled both by how much solvent is mixed in and how thinly you spread out the paint with the brush.

An imprimatura can be quite beautiful on its own, but usually the plan is to go over the top with opaque paint. They can also be quick and rudimentary, like a rough sketch.

Grisaille

In its most strict sense, a grisaille is a full grayscale, opaque painting. This can be made with black and white paints, or by mixing burnt umber or burnt sienna with ultramarine blue to make black, and then add white to create different values of gray. Here's an example of a grisaille done this way:

You can still see the imprimatura peeking through the lower left corner.

However, underpaintings made with dark browns and white are still considered grisaille in my book, and that seems to be the case among other artists as well. The gray created is a little warmer, but it functions essentially the same way with opaque warm grays. Here's a grisaille done with burnt umber and white:

You can see the imprimatura, grisaille, and color layers of this painting come together in Portrait Painting in Oil.

This grisaille is opaque, there's some body and thickness to the light areas, and the details and values are fully rendered. Therefore it's ready for glazing, or opaque painting over the top. (I did some of both.)

Above is a rough imprimatura, followed by a developing grisaille made by adding white to transparent brown layer.

And above here is another imprimatura which was turned into a grisaille with a relatively small amount of white.

Why Use an Underpainting?

That's the great question, right? There are many reasons.

One great reason is that working on an underpainting in monochrome can help you divide the painting process into separate problems: First a problem of drawing and then the problem of color. *Or vice versa! For example, when working on a portrait it can be incredibly helpful to get the features placed and the shading thought out rather than trying to juggle such complexity at the same time as juggling color.

Definitely the color layer of this portrait was made easier by completing the grisaille first.

Or, perhaps you have a complex composition, so you want to use an imprimatura to draw out where all your subjects and their shadows will be placed before you start rendering them in color.

Having a layer of oil paint down also affects the way color will lay over the top, physically because it changes the surface texture of the substrate but also it allows a color other than white to show through thin or gaps of oil paint.

Speaking of color...

Other Types of Underpaintings

Underpaintings come in colors other than gray and brown:

Verdaccio: A greenish underpainting often used with portraits and skin tones. The green hue helps neutralize warm color mixtures placed over the top, leading to a more natural color.

Brunaille: An opaque brown under painting. (My portrait above qualifies as a brunaille, though I still call it a grisaille. It's not a common term.)

*Ebauche: An underpainting done in full but flat color.

*Remember when I said "Or vice-versa!" This is what I meant. An ebauche can be done with blocks of flat color, thinned with solvent, and without full drawing or shading. I've used this a lot in my burlesque paintings where someone is wearing a blue dress, with a green curtain in the background, and a purple wall, for example. I block in the large colors of the area to get the compositional layout and color relationships, and then spend the next layers building up values and working out the correct shapes, ie the drawing.

Here's an example of an ebauche for a large colorful painting:

And the final painting with full values and details (I changed my mind about the fan):

In Conclusion

Often we are looking for the answer for the right way to paint. The truth is there are many, many ways to approach painting that are right, and only a few that are wrong (just don't violate that fat over lean rule!), so the key is finding what's right for you. Personally, I don't approach all my paintings the same way. Sometimes I do an imprimatura or grisaille, sometimes an eubache, and other times I just start painting and figure it out. It depends on the subject, my mood, and often my patience level!

I encourage you to experiment with different techniques more than once, and think about what you like and dislike about each.

Resources

Here are some classes which explore imprimatura and grisaille:

Foundations of Oil Painting begins with an imprimatura and grisaille of a sphere in Lesson 1, and then returns to the concept of underpaintings in Lesson 4 where you complete a full grisaille to be glazed in Lesson 6. The above vessels are one demo, a copy of Vermeer's A Girl with a Pearl Earring is another, and additional demos are being added. Color mixing, working Alla Prima, and composition are also covered in this course.

Portrait Painting in Oil leads you through the process of creating a full grisaille of a portrait before adding color both through glazes and opaque paint. Color theory and skin tone palettes are covered in addition to getting a likeness through shapes and shadow. Multiple reference photos and demos included.