Oil Paintings - Prints - The making of "Here comes the sun" oil painting on linen canvas by Dominique Amendola

'Here comes the sun', sings George Harrison on a happy tune. When I saw the girl on the porch with her guitar, I had to paint her. Her hair was very thick, golden and curly_just lovely. I painted this piece on quality linen canvas. First I went for sketches. Below, you can see the final sketch. What are sketches good for? First they help solving the problem of composition, light and dark before going on the canvas. Then the shapes get refined to what is needed. A sketch will take just a few days at most, while a painting can take several months. This particular painting took me three months to complete. You can see in the sketch I am solving a lot of problems. This sketch becomes a reference point even when the model is absent.

                                                            If you click on the image, you'll get a larger view.

After the sketches the painting itself starts in earnest. However, in this case, I painted an underpainting of grisaille first. That means that with very few colors, the painting is established. In this case, I used only raw umber and white. Then the final colors are glazed on this underpainting, after it is very dry. It is best to wait several days, depending on the medium used. The advantage of the grisaille technique is that at first, the artist only worries about shapes and values.

                                                             
                                                                   Grisaille layer

                                                             

Then the colors can be applied in layers of glazes.

                                                       Here comes the sun detail view 1

                                                       Here comes the sun detail view 2

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