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Many folks have asked when and why tone the canvas prior to painting on it, and I have decided to write a Blog about this subject. First off, what is toning a canvas? Simple, it is a selected color that the artist decides to use and applies it to the entire canvas so as to cover all of the bare canvas. I use a combination of Gamsol or Turpentine along with the oil paint to give a very diluted color which I can apply with a large fan brush and using a paper towel, wipe the canvas and begin impregnating it with the color. There are two options after this: Wait and let the paint dry, or quickly begin the painting. I opt to begin the painting quickly because I want the toned canvas to give the entire painting a uniform hue, and allow the color to blend with other colors. The only way to decide which color to use is from experimenting, and knowing the basic color that the painting will be. I am using one of my latest paintings as an example, and my train of thoughts behind the decision for which color. Snowscenes usually are a limited palette of color with cooler colors. I wanted to use a color that would blend well with the blues and greys of shadows, as well as add sparkle to some warmer colors such as burnt sienna or yellows. Alizrian crimson will work with these colors, giving blues a purple, rich feel and will make yellows have a warm orange glow, as well as give burnt sienna a warm, yet rich feel. Shown is the beginning of the painting, along with how some of the colors will appear as I paint the painting.

One thing that I have learned from painting is to know how long it will take for the toning to dry and not be workable in the painting. How I achieve this is by how much of the pigment I rub off when using the paper towel to spread the paint, and how much to dilute the color when I apply it. Dilution of the pigment should be less, and wiped lighter for good blending. Notice in the lower half of this piece, I have quickly drawn in a few reference lines and know that I need more dilution along with more scrubbing with the paper towel to give a much drier, and less absorbent color for the darker colors in the painting. While painting the darker colors in the lower half, I will apply the paint lightly in areas and allow the actual toning to show thru as seen in this photo:

As the painting progresses, I will often scrape thru the outer layers of paint with my palette knife and reveal the toned colors of which I will then cover with another color such as white for tree limbs and various other details. In one of my classes, I demoed how it is much simpler to scratch a detail in if you are uncertain of how it will look in the painting..then to guess and paint it in. A small scratched area is easy to fix, versus a swatch of paint that could ruin the entire painting! (This comes from my School of Hard Knocks).

After I have the entire painting covered with paint and values adjusted, I once again begin to remove some of the thicker layers of paint by brushing or scraping to reveal the undertone and blended areas of the undertone. Doing a painting with this technique requires a painter to paint fairly quickly and may not be for folks that are more precise with their work. However, letting the toned canvas dry completely will still allow any artist to achieve wonderful results in their work. 

Here is the completed painting showing parts of the original toned canvas showing thru.

Another way to give a painting a "more painterly" feel is to paint a painting....over an old painting. I have experimented with this technique, and the results have been remarkable. However, when doing this technique...I will use an older painting that has similar colors (sometimes I turn the original painting upside down because the colors work better for when I paint over them).

Lastly, is there times when I do not tone the canvas? The answer is Yes. Sometimes to achieve a more precise painting, I will actually pencil a detailed sketch of the painting directly onto the white canvas in order to see if I need to make any corrections to the composition prior to ever starting the piece. I rarely do this unless I am uncertain as to the size of objects and how they will look on the canvas, or if I will need to make any adjustments prior to starting the actual painting. I hope this helps you with your painting, and if you have any questions, feel free to comment on this blog entry or send me an email.