underpainting
2
6.7
- noun
- /ˈʌndərˌpeɪntɪŋ/
- Specialized
:
imprimatura
- The artist started her painting with a smooth layer of underpainting to create a solid foundation.
Examples
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And when you do the underpainting or the light and dark underneath your foundation, it just, it just looks so much more beautiful on the skin.
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Gros sustained the spontaneous qualities through the underpainting stage; he laid in with coarse touches, quickly covering his entire canvas (Boime 40).
Academic text (2000) -
Then the underpainting, drawn with paint.
Fiction book (1995) -
I personally much prefer underpainting, but you know, this is just personal preference really.
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The Cloudman's big secret, or so he claimed, was all in the underpainting.
Fiction book (2000) -
Heade would have known that oil paint gets more transparent with time and allows underpainting to show through.
Fiction book (1995) -
So I took the plunge last night and pulled out my paints, brushes, and underpainting and started to lay in the first color pass.
Blog text (30) -
He then cut the canvas down to fit a special oven and applied the usual layers of chalk and glue underpainting.
Academic text (2011) -
She's contouring with this all of the time, Contouring the lips, doing the full snatch, doing the underpainting with the RCMA palette.
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One of the most striking similarities between the techniques espoused by Gros and those advocated by Frenhofer lies in the importance both place on the ebauche, or the underpainting stage usually intended to prepare the surface of the canvas.
Academic text (2000)
Synonyms
1
4.3
A first thin layer of paint applied to a surface before the final coat
A thin first layer of paint on a canvas that gives the painting a base color
A first layer of paint that prepares a surface for later coats
A color layer placed under paint to change the final look
How Finished
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Underpainting is made from under ('below') and paint, so it means paint that goes 'below' the finished layers as a base. That's why an underpainting is the first layer artists put down to show the main shapes and shadows before they add the final colors.