I am on to the next element of my Udemy Acrylics Academy course, underpainting. I hadn't heard of this before. I had always imagined you just paint the colours onto your canvas. I had of course seen people painting an outline and suggested shading on a canvas, but I took this to be an alternative to sketching things out. As it turns out you can start by painting the entire image as a monochromatic underpainting. Choosing one shade, such as grey or sepia, and effectively doing a black and white photograph of your desire subject. Once complete you then go back and apply colour varnishes in the appropriate areas. I'm not too sure how this will work as I don't have any of the medium he uses, but I'll give it a go.
To my embarrassment, after three hours of work I thought I had finished the underpainting and was feeling rather pleased with myself. Then I noticed that I had only done Part 1. Part 2 allows for more refined detail to be added to the image. Oops. Having seen the additional work he goes on to do in the second part I do feel a bit sheepish.
I think this may be a habit of mine from long ago. The habit of stopping short for fear of overworking. In more recent times I have also found myself trying to blast through a piece in a day, when the best thing I could do would be to leave it overnight and come back with fresh eyes to see where improvement could be made. Truthfully anytime I have done this my work has been better for it. So it is worth reminding myself that I have no defined end goal or deadline. There is nothing to be gained by hurrying through work, even if it is just coursework. All work should be considered and at least enjoyed, rather than tossed aside as soon as it is passable.
With this in mind I hope to get back to it tomorrow and I will actually put in the necessary effort to improve upon today's work. I won't be anywhere near his standard, but what else can I expect? As long as I can look at it and feel I've given it a really good try that will suffice. Keep it all crossed for me!
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