On a new assignment

In the park -- ready for summer
Stages 1 and 2
Acrylic on canvas
24 x 36 inches
Barbara Muir © 2010
(I've done a light sketch -- you saw my
more detailed sketch -- then began blocking
in the large shapes in the underpainting
colours.)

Step one is the underpainting. Actually with this one
which has to move apace, step one was the drawing, and
step two the underpainting, which is mostly finished.
I showed you my little ink drawing of them the other day,
but on Sunday I moved them onto the big canvas, and began
to think about what colours would work underneath to
make the colours above sing.

Today I kept working on it, and revising my thoughts. Right
now it looks like it will be dark indeed, but actually the
children are in a park on a lovely spring day, so its current
look will transform considerably.

I didn't learn about underpainting at art school. Maybe I didn't
stay long enough. I was eager to hear some meaningful
words, and in truth at the time followed my then heartthrob
from art school to university. He made it clear to me in my
first week there that he wanted nothing to do with me, so
I settled down to art and English literature, and that was
that.

I learned about underpainting teaching English at the college
where I teach. Blurring the edges between English and art
I used to take my winter students to the Art Gallery of Ontario,
and make them write a research paper on one of the Canadian
artists featured at the gallery. While hosting field trips
for this purpose I would talk to my students about art and
what the painters were doing and why. Over several
semesters looking at the same paintings, I started to really
see the power of underpainting, especially in the work of
the Group of Seven. Then watching one of the women in my
art club get rich skin tones with a rust ground, I started
experimenting with rust, orange, red, and other colours.
Et voila as we say in Canada. Here I am, underpainting like
a mad dog, and happy to do so.

Have a that's-where-I-learned-that day.

P.S. Thank you Lawren Harris (Group of Seven -- fond of
a reddish purple underpainting). The painting of the PhD.
young woman went home today, and I was delighted that
her mother was happy.