What is Verdaccio and How To Use It In Your Paintings

What are some of the reasons for creating a complete monochromatic underpainting when working in oils, either in a Verdaccio or a French-style Grisaille (grey-scale)? Of course, the underpainting is useful in refining an initial drawing and placing figures and objects more accurately for the painting. But perhaps most importantly it helps one establish proper tonal values for the painting, without having to worry about color, or hue, at the same time.

Two important concepts an artist must understand are hue and value. Hue is easy for most to grasp right away: hue is whether we see an object as red, yellow, blue, green or any of the other colors along the visual spectrum. Value is sometimes more difficult for students to understand, but relates to how light or dark an object appears. Strip away all of the color from an image, as I have done above in the middle version with Albrecht Dürer's "Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman" above, and you are left with only values ranging from pure white to pure black with which to see the image. This is a "monochromatic" image, although a monochromatic image can also be completed in an overall hue - such as with the "Verdaccio" version of the image to the far right.

Beginning artists often have a tendency to misread values, going for too much light/dark contrast and not seeing those middle tonal values properly. By completing a very thorough monochromatic underpainting, the artist is forced to carefully study and look only at the values of an image and not be distracted or mislead by color.

Once you have your base green for your Verdaccio, the next step is to mix it in a series of values so you can begin painting. Just as a gray scale value finder shows ten values from white to black, so should your palette of premixed Verdaccio values. In the picture above, you can see two paintings in progress with a range of verdaccio values laid out in front on the palette. They have been mixed and arranged on special "Controlled Palettes" as designed by Frank Covino. These palettes, available both in neutral gray or Verdaccio, are a great tool for making sure the value of your paint matches designated tonal values.

While at first it may seem like tedious work to mix and prepare so many values of paint so precisely, once you begin painting you will find how useful it is. Working with a monochrome copy of a painting as a reference, the artists in this workshop are able to quickly determine values and learn to really "see" them more accurately.

If you're feeling lazy or are pressed for time, some manufacturers sell Premixed Verdaccio Kits of 8 to 10 values of paint. While convenient to use, these premixed kits do not teach artists the skills involved in mixing their own paint values.

There are many different techniques for applying flesh tones over a finished Verdaccio underpainting. Of course, the underpainting should be fully dry before proceeding to flesh tones so as not to muddy the colors. Some artists such as Frank Covino continue with a very controlled palette of flesh tones, premixing the color hues and then making a full range of values from them. The photograph above shows Covino working on a student's painting, explaining the application technique for flesh tone color. However, for a more flexible approach one can use a simpler palette of Earth tones and Cadmium hues and mix tints as you go. In shadowed areas, one can often simply glaze umber or sienna paints thinly over the Verdaccio, and let the browns and green interact to create beautiful shadows of realistic depth.

The details of applying flesh tone colors are complex and subject enough for another lesson, and can be seen in application in some of my other painting tutorials.