Underdrawing is a preparatory

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayo ...

done on a painting ground before paint is applied, for example, an

imprimatura In painting, imprimatura is an initial stain of color painted on a ground. It provides a painter with a transparent, toned ground, which will allow light falling onto the painting to reflect through the paint layers. The term itself stems from the ...

or an

underpainting In art, an underpainting is an initial layer of paint applied to a ground, which serves as a base for subsequent layers of paint. Underpaintings are often monochromatic and help to define color values for later painting. Underpainting gets its name ...

. Underdrawing was used extensively by 15th century painters like

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. A ...

and

Rogier van der Weyden Rogier van der Weyden () or Roger de la Pasture (1399 or 140018 June 1464) was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly ...

. These artists "underdrew" with a brush, using hatching strokes for shading, using water-based black paint, before

and overpainting with oils. Cennino D'Andrea Cennini (14th century most likely) describes a different type of underdrawing, made with graded tones rather than hatching, for

egg tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...

. In some cases, underdrawing can be clearly visualized using

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of Light, visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from ...

reflectography because

carbon black Carbon black (subtypes are acetylene black, channel black, furnace black, lamp black and thermal black) is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of coal and coal tar, vegetable matter, or petroleum products, including fuel oil, fluid ...

pigments absorb infrared light, whereas opaque pigments such as lead white are transparent with infrared light. Underdrawing in many works, for example, the ''Annunciation'' (van Eyck, Washington) or the ''

Arnolfini Portrait ''The Arnolfini Portrait'' (or ''The Arnolfini Wedding'', ''The Arnolfini Marriage'', the ''Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife'', or other titles) is a 1434 oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It for ...

'', reveals that artists made alterations, sometimes radical ones, to their compositions. The underdrawing can reveal changes, sometimes radical, made by the painter as the painting develops. For example, one of the five versions of the ''

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

'' by

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, '' The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the d ...

has underdrawings showing the arms conventionally hanging down, before the final version has one arm behind the subject's head, and the other behind her back.

References

*Infrared reflectography and spectroscopi
analysis of paintings

External links

Painting techniques Visual arts {{painting-stub