Hi fellow art lovers!
If this is your first time here, welcome!
I attended a Portrait Painting Workshop held in Haines, Alaska
from June 8 through 12, 2026. Thirteen serious painters were there.
Three of us were from Juneau and there were other painters from Haines
and a few from the east coast.
In this post I show how our
Studio Incamminati instructor lead the workshop,
with pictures and videos of our efforts.
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| Studio Incamminati master instructor Natalie Italiano (check out her website) |
We learned the terms Open Grisaille and Closed Grisaille.
But first, the definition of Grisaille is: monochromatic painting using shades of gray, black, white or other neutral color. Our grisailles in this workshop did use a burnt sienna making it actually a brunaille (a painting executed entirely or primarily in shades of brown, or brownish/red).
Open grisaille is a classical oil painting underpainting technique where the image is developed thinly using a single monochromatic pigment, leaving the canvas or ground exposed for the lightest areas. It relies on a "wipeout" method to define values and allows artists to easily adjust shapes before adding color.
The next two pictures are my practice pieces with the open grisaille technique. One thing we did which was very good practice was to do the open grisaille
and wipe it off, again and again. The purpose is to develop your drawing skills.
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| this one sort of reminds me of me |
I walked around the room taking a video of all of our open grisaille work.
Closed grisaille is an opaque, monochromatic underpainting technique in which an artist builds up the full range of values and textures
using only black, white and gray paint.
Below is one of my open grisaille sketches (with model) and below that,
the closed grisaille, where I added white to my burnt sienna.
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| You may notice at the side of the canvas above there are small sample swatches of paint in 4 values. These are there to keep track of the dark, medium and lightest values that you see as you develop your portrait. |
We also learned from Natalie a bit about how to do a color study.
A color study is usually a small-scale canvas painted
with just basic large shapes, test colors and light arrangements
to use in the larger, more detailed final painting.
Here is Natalie with her (more of a finished) color study with model Maria,
after painting for 3-hours
(and after a full day of teaching!).
This last photo of my work is when I added color as the workshop
was coming to a close. It doesn't look like our model, but
it looks humanoid, so it's a start.
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| Anna 20" x 16" |
Workshop group photo!
Donna Catotti, bottom left in the photo, click on her link!
is the Haines home town organizer of this great workshop,
and has done it for 9 years or so!
Our top notch instructor, Natalie, who lives on the East Coast
is shown bottom right.
Thank you Natalie and Donna! and thank you to our great models
(we had four, plus Natalie's color study model).
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Haines is surrounded by mountains! We had beautiful weather during the workshop. |
Thank you for reading my art journal.
It began as a simple blog and has endured for over 18 years.
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Until next time, happy creating!
🎨
Teri
