Grisaille, reclining nude model

Here's a grisaille painting of a reclining nude. It's fairly small (16x20), and done in oil on linen.
A grisaille like this one is kind of an intermediate step between drawing and painting. It's drawing, but drawing with a brush and with masses instead of line.

Grisaille is an artists term for "monochromatic". In 18th century art, it was often done as an underpainting that was later covered with colored glazes. I'm not so fond of that approach, I think that if you're going to paint in color, it's just more fun to paint with colors directly.

But for studies, especially for quick ones where you've only got the model for an hour or so, it's a great way to work.
It dramatically simplifies the problem, as you're only worried about getting the right values in the right place. Hue and saturation can be tossed, along with all of their complications. And as important as color is, value is primary. You can get your colors wrong, but as long as the values are in the ballpark, the painting will be believable.



(click to enlarge)