Painting My World: What Happens When You Change Underpainting Colors?

'Passing Storm' 18x24 pastel ©Karen Margulis
available $350

I love the reference photos. It was one of those 'drive-by' shots taken from the car as the landscaped zipped by. The sky was our entertainment on the last few hours of a long drive across Texas and New Mexico. Storms on the horizon provided a changing spectacle of drama in the sky. I took many photos of the same distant storm and they continue to provide inspiration.

The first painting I did was for my Sky workshop in Florida. For this demo I painted large and used four values of violet for a dry wash underpainting. I wanted to create interesting grays in the storm clouds and felt that violet would lend a dramatic and moody touch. This was the resulting painting.

The original painting used a violet underpainting

What would happen if I changed underpainting colors? Could I get a stormy mood with another color palette? It is a question I ask myself whenever choosing underpainting colors? How would the color choice impact the mood and feel of the painting? There is no right or wrong answer. It really is a matter of trial and error. The more options you try the more intuitive future underpainting color choices will be.

Creating a series from a favorite reference is the perfect way to discover interesting new color palettes.

The colors I selected for the underpainting...Nupastels and Rembrandt

I decided to use the same photo for yesterday's sky workshop. But this time I would choose different underpainting colors. The first painting had a violet underpainting with golds, ochres and yellows in the final painting. I decided to try to use blues and oranges for this version. I tested potential colors on a paper scrap.

Since it was a quick demo I needed to do another dry underpainting. I selected a few Nupastels and a Rembrandt. I wanted a dark, a light and some middle values that would give me a head start on my blue and orange color scheme. In this version the underpainting colors were the actual local colors that I planned to use. I rubbed this layer of hard pastel into the paper with a piece of pipe foam.
(I didn't get a photo since it was a class demo)

My color sampler....trying out possible colors

What did I discover? The underpainting colors guided me and set the tone of the painting. The resulting painting still expressed the distant dark and stormy feeling and yet I used a different set of colors.