Really really stooopid question....work flow

Joe T

Mac-Valve Maestro!
did some painting today and think I went backwards. My question is workflow, or better yet dark to light or light to dark. When I was working I did light to dark and halfway realized I had a few things I wanted to go light but then had a hard time because the area was dark. I didn’t want to use white to go light again so tried erasing but for some reason my wicked detail on terraslate didn’t want to erase real easy. I was using a Fabre castell white hard eraser...anyway, what’s the best workflow to use.

Odd too that some areas erased fine and others not so much. I think it was because I laid the paint on too heavy.

Hope everyone is doing well and life is good.

Joe
 
When erasing on any paper, the fresher the paint the better is the general rule, on synthetic though if you are heavy handed you'll go right back to white !!

If you look around at the WIP and Step by Step section of the forum you'll likely find a subject similar to what you are working on that will help give you a better idea of which way to procedd.
 
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I mainly depends on what I am painting on which way I go. But lately I start with a mid tone and use it as it will be the only color used. So I start with all the darkest areas then to the midtone then I will give it a light dusting to help blend it in. Any super white areas I will erase back too then I will make sure I save them as I am painting. Meaning no more paint goes there.
I then build my darkest areas building them until they get as dark as I need them .
But everyone finds their own way to do paintings.
 
Wicked sets fairly quick, once its past that point it wont erase well. CI has a much longer open time.
I generally focus more on loose to tight than the dark or light part.
Especially since I tend to get each element where i want it, lightly then go in and finalize it and at that point everything gets darkened to its end point..
 
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I won’t give advice as I’m still learning all this stuff too, but I can say what I do. I’ll tend to start with the darker areas, but not the darkest tone. Let’s say I’m doing a skull, the eyes and nose sockets will get the first of the paint, but I don’t take them as dark as they eventually end up. Because I’ve added trans base to a black, it won’t go full black until it has several layers, so I’ll start in the eyes, work my way out with some of the lighter shadows and re darken the eyes as I need to in order to keep them balanced. I hope that makes some sense and as I said, that’s not so much a suggestion as it is a description of what I do right or wrong.
 
when you do a monochrome you start with the darkest parts and work your way towards the lightest values , use real transparent paint to avoid going to dark to soon
 
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