“Island Girl Taylor Moon” by Peggy Burkosky
Our Tuesday night drawing and painting sessions of the costumed figure at Sheena McCorquodales’s “The Studio in Qualicum Bay” have been thoroughly rewarding. Every talented artist attending is grateful for the opportunity. Here we have our recent lovely west coast girl “Taylor Moon” in oils on a toned canvas. She is an exquisite model – a natural who keeps a long pose.
Imprimatura is the method of toning a canvas and imparting a middle value. This can be applied with a cloth or painterly brush strokes in oils or fast drying acrylics. Better still, applied over a textured canvas with layers of gesso or acrylic ground produces wonderful loose expressive movement. The main purpose of toning the canvas is to have a middle tone that assists in assessing lights and darks. It is difficult to paint on the white of an untoned canvas, since the high contrast of dark values against white can throw off our value assessments. Seen here are some classic examples of imprimatura done by Rubens, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt and Bouguereau. Notice the lively brushwork beneath these studies.
