In grisaille, you can use burnt umber (BRUNaille), Green (VERDaille) or gray (GRISaille). It depends on the final outcome you want, whether a warm tone, cool tone, etc.
In this picture (from my photo), I used the burnt umber. Please see the notes on what paints and paper to use in the previous blog.
In grisaille, you do most of the work in monochrome, forming the values and molding the shapes as you would if you were shading a picture.
My reference photo taken 3/29/2019. First step was to turn it into a black and white so all I could see was value, not color.
First I sketched onto Arches cold press. It really holds the underpainting. You don't want a paint (or paper) that will lift for underpainting. I taped the BLACK AND WHITE version of my photo next to my painting as I work.
Mask off any highlights you want to preserve.
I constantly compare values as I go. A good way to do that is, if you are not using grays, take photos on your cell phone and change them to black and white (side by side, like this), and compare the two.
You can also compare by taking two very white cards and poking a hole in each. Use it as a viewer, holding one over the area on the photo, and the other over your painting. Compare to see how close your values are.
In the above photo, I could see that my values were not as strong on the copper pot as they should be to create the feeling of shine and roundness. So, in the photo below, I strengthened the darks. Then I worked on the two glass vases. When I got to the middle one (yellow with specks), I used a sponge to create small flecks on the glass. This part of the process took me about 2 hours...I'm a slow poke.
Also, you can see on the far left vase that I am terrible with straight lines. I had to go in with some masking tape to help me straighten up the right side of that vase.
When I was satisfied with my values, I began glazing over the underpainting. I began with green and pthalo blue over the center of the copper pitcher. While that was drying I used quin gold to glaze over the yellow vase. The red vase is rose madder and perm red. (You can see I still have miskit on the vases. I should have used more miskit on the pitcher) I feel like I lost some sparkle.
To finish up the pitcher, I used quin burnt orange, quin gold, and perm red. I used quin gold over most of it, avoiding the pure whites, then put burnt orange and perm red in the deeper tones. When dry, I removed all miskit, and made some small adjustments. Also added a bit more green tones in the center area of the copper.
I like the overall look and feel of this. However, I have two regrets. One is that I did not mask off enough of the whites on the pitcher, and had to go back and lift. The other is that I would like to have the glass look more transparent than it does. Other than that, I like it. Not something to use with every painting, but definitely a tool in your tool kit.
For more information about painting grisaille, see these two youtube videos:
The Frugal Crafter: Step by step - about 1 hr
about 7 minutes explanation
This is the one by Hajra Meeks. She has several good videos on grisaille, both with and without a color glaze.
When I finish the gray tone painting, I'll post it and tell you what I did differently on my second attempt.
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