They call them the Old Masters for a reason, and throughout the years they perfected a technique that, in my opinion, cannot be topped. The amount of realism through the handling of light, halftones and shadows. The transformation of hue, chroma, and value (color, saturation, lightness) as a light turns into a shadow.

I call myself "self-taught" but I do study the Masters. In this tutorial I'll touch on some of the wisdom I've learned from them to achieve a scene with radiant light.

I will show you how to effectively use a grisaille underpainting to lay out your lighting first, so that you can purely focus 100% of your attention on the color, and bring your vision into reality. You will be painting a monochromatic (black and white) version of your work, then layering transparent "glazes" over this, accompanied by thick colorful opaque (not transparent) areas for the lights.

1. Concept:

90% of my work usually starts with a spark intense vivid daydreaming or simple, fun and intuitive drawing. The other 10% will be from inspiration of everyday living. When creativity hits it's very important to concentrate the brilliant vision into a sketh right away. My studio is scattered with little post-it notes of hastefully intense sketches. A good concept shouldn't just replicate the power of the camera, it should tell a story. It should narrate a special message to your viewers.

2. Refining Composition

The next step is establishing the foundation of your work. It must be visually strong to hold the image. Think of this as the tour-guide of your work; think, "Where would I like my viewers' eyes to travel? First, then where? In which fun path will they go? How can this path bring further meaning to my painting?".

I complete my final composition sketch on the canvas, and lack the image, but below you can see the elements of my design. This is where a strong eye for design comes into play. A good knowledge of math, believe it or not, actually helps. In some of the greatest masterpieces (including in and inspired by nature), a strong foundation armature was used. From the Golden Rectangle to Fibonacci Sequence.

3. Under Painting (bistre)

This is the first value layer where you position your composition and create a rough version. Before I even begin painting, a few days before I will tone the canvas with raw umber. This means that I'll coat the whole canvas with a thin even wash of color. With works that contain an abundance of light, I will wipe way the area of light- leaving the white canvas showing through.

Then I start the actual underpainting. I complete this with an umber color, using soft Viva paper towels to wipe away the paint to create lights and brushing paint to darken. In this first stage I'll lay in the shapes of my subject, refine the edges and work out the values. I generally work from background to foreground, but over all I work back and forth, sculpting them into eachother. This layer will support the next layer. You must always remember to paint your current layer to aid the next. I do not go too much into detail yet, it will just get covered with the next layer.