Step 5: Underpainting

When I start a painting, I always do a wet-in-wet under-painting.  First, I will mask any areas where saving the white of the paper is critical.  This lets me be freer with the under-painting. I use a colorless art masking fluid. This is applied with cheap disposable brushes; I mean really cheap brushes. Test the brushes in water first because sometimes the hairs come loose and you wind up with hairs in the fluid. On this painting, I only masked the edges of the main leaf, which will be my center of interest. Usually, I drop in different colors throughout the entire painting.  On this one, I mostly used Winsor Yellow. The masking fluid also allowed me  to add the green at the bottom of the leaf.  The masking fluid acted as a dam around the leaf, so the green did not bleed into other areas of the painting.  This main leaf is almost totally completed.  All I need to add is the stem down the middle of the leaf.  When the paint is dry, I cover it with a piece of tracing paper and lay a Masonite board over it to flatter the paper for the next painting step.