Layering in progress for Peter Is Called to Ministry and Martyrdom.

After my construction lines are done, the next step in my painting process is layering. To me this is nothing more than color blocking. It helps me:

--find the right tones and contrasts

--see where the shadows and highlights will fall

--set the painting's color sense, and

--ensure color distribution over the entire canvas.

I am only on my seventh layer in this photo; the figure's and the fishing poles' medium tones remain undone. 

I never layer with unmixed colors. For example, the sky is a mixture of alizarin, carmine, and Payne's gray, while the sea water is a mixture of ivory black and terre verte. Mixing at this stage allows me to see where the work is going. I also eliminate the need for under-painting--the layers serve as THE under-painting. Having said all that, I should also point out that the objective of layering is not to cover the entire canvas with paint. There are times when I allow the bare canvas to shine through. In my portrait of Ambeth Ocampo, for instance, the bitten apple is not painted white. It is the bare, primed canvas that I merely painted around. In The Pauline Letters, the companion piece to this painting, the highlights of the sash round Paul's waist are also portions of unpainted, bare, primed canvas.  

Note that layering still renders the painting flat. It is only during the third and last step, glazing, that everything magically takes on three dimensions.

Yes, my painting process is comprised of only three, simple steps: construction lines, layering, and glazing.