Oil Painting Step by Step

Lesson 1: Toning Your Support

with John Loughlin

Many artists start painting by toning the entire canvas with a mid-value wash, called an underpainting or undercolor. An underpainting is just as it sounds—“under the painting”; it’s meant to be painted over. Think of this base color as a warm-up exercise, but remember that the subsequent colors you apply will interact with the hue of the underpainting. So if your subject has a lot of warm colors, you may want to apply a warm undercolor; conversely, a subject with cool hues can be accentuated with a cool undercolor. For this cool snow scene, artist John Loughlin applied a cool, mid-value wash to the entire canvas before sketching his subject with soft vine charcoal.

Color Palette

alizarin purple*, ...