The first glazing layers on Thomas Touching the Side of Christ

After years of working on the underpainting, this autumn has seen the first  color appear on my painting of Christ and Thomas with all of the disciples gathered in a room together.  I am taking a lot of cues for the colors in this painting from Rogier Van Der Weyden’s famous Descent from the Cross in Madrid’s Prado museum.   

It is a clunky and halting phase of the process, trying to use the appropriate colors, and the right medium, and the right balance of medium to paint ratio.  I’ve had to rub out hours of work at a time, when I’ve come back the next morning to realize the color isn’t working.  

It is tempting to render the layer to a finished state, even though I know there will be subsequent layers.  It is foolish to carry detail too far just yet, and it is difficult to leave certain problems alone until a more appropriate time.  I caught myself over-rendering the blue of Nicodemus’ robe and had to stop myself midway through.

Glazing takes advantage of the semi-transparent nature of many pigments when mixed with linseed oil as a binder.  By building up multiple thin layers of paint, it is possible to achieve unique and special color and luminosity in a picture, especially in the correct light. 

This painting is a huge learning experience.  They didn’t teach this sort of thing in art school while I was there, so I am having to work through a lot of discovery and failure, even while taking advantage of the many written treatises on painting throughout the centuries.