60 Watercolor artist | FEBRUARY 2019
Achromatic painting was quicker and less expensive
than using costly color pigments, or creating a relief
sculpture. h e works also could be rendered in brown/
sepia tones (brunaille) or gray-green (verdaille), which
were often used in tempera paintings as an underpaint-
ing technique for skin tones.
With the development of oil paint in the 1400s,
artists discovered the incredible range of this new
medium. It could be used thick and opaque or in thin
transparent washes. h e grisaille technique was already
widely known, but now an artist could create a grisaille
underpainting and apply color glazes over it. Not only
was it easy to get a range of value using just a single
color, it also helped avoid the risk of the vivid colors
getting muddy by mixing colors wet.
I’ve found that this old oil technique works well for
watercolor painting as well. I take my Payne’s gray and
use it from full strength to very light washes to create an
initial grisaille layer, or value pattern. h e Winsor &
Newton Payne’s gray isn’t a true achromatic gray, but
rather a deep gray-blue (a mixture of ultramarine, Mars
black and sometimes crimson). I love it for its richness
and depth. I sometimes decide my painting is i nished at
the underpainting stage—without adding any local color.Great Feats
of Grisaille
There are many fascinating
examples of grisaille from the
medieval and Renaissance
periods. The 1305 frescoes of
Giotto (Italian, 1276-1337) in
the Scrovegni Chapel in
Padua, Italy, for example,
contain grisaille figures of
“vices and virtues.”
Michelangelo (Italian,
1475-1564) painted grisaille
putti—beautiful cherubic
babies, holding up the
entablatures in the Sistine
Chapel ceiling.
Perhaps one of the most
astonishing examples is the
work on the outside hinged
panels of the Ghent Altar-
piece, painted by Flemish
artist Jan van Eyck (1390-1441).
The altarpiece, which depicts
Christian saints, was
commissioned for St Bavo’s
Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium.
In many churches, triptychs
were displayed with panels
closed, and visitors had to
pay a fee to see the color
paintings inside.John the Baptist, a detail from
The Ghent Altar polyptych with
the Adoration of the Lamb
1432; grisaille from the workday
panels. Oakwood, 58¾x21½ART RESOURCE, NY