The VELÁZQUEZ Technique. Discovering his Painting Process.

hello everyone my name is carlos martinez leon and i'm one of the principals instructors of miami international fine arts today we are going to speak about the velasquez painting process in this short video and i'm going to explain you step by step the process that i think velasquez used to paint his projects to give you a little bit of history my journey with velasquez started 10 years ago when i was studying in florence academy of art my process of painting was really tough so in a way i decided to look in velazquez ways to help me improve the way that i was painting or understanding painting for that i became obsessed with his books obsessed with his information and it was pretty much like this [Music] so basically after being obsessed with velasquez for one year studying eating sleeping with the book in my hands i understood a few things that i think through my interpretation is the process in which velasquez painted for this video we are going to focus only on one because that painting taught me the way in which velasquez made his process or the method in which he painted step by step to the finished painting that painting is the surrender of bretta and in this detail we can study and we can see how he started continued and finished the painting so the first step that i see he started from the halftones and then from the halftone he'll build up the lights and the shadows so basically he would start from the middle value if you see the grayscale or the value scale and he would start from the middle and he would start adding light and adding darks the last things that velasquez painted was the highlight and the darkest starks using black and white at the end of the process this way he would build up the the atmosphere in a very controlled way [Music] the first thing that we will discuss is the palette the palette that i'm going to use is composed of lead white yellow ochre venetian red vermilion red raw umber and black for more information about the palette you can go to the link below of natural pigments they wrote an article on the velasquez palette after a few studies they did chemically there are different grounds different mediums that he used and for the sake of this painting this is the colors that i'm going to use another thing that you need to keep in mind is that he used a lot of calcium carbonate he would mix this with the oils making the painting more fluid and changing uh the actual consistency of the paint creating more transparent layers and and more fluid and long brush strokes another thing that we want to discuss today is the use of the brushes velasquez used long round brushes in his paintings these brushes create a really soft look really soft edges and we can see this in the way that he was actually using and applying each brushstroke [Music] one thing that we need to discuss is the imprimatura the imprimatura is a color that he laid down in the canvas to create a halftone for the beginning of the process so in this case and because of my observations i thought that for this case in particular this romper in the primatura will help me create a middle ground for devil of the painting all of the velazquez paintings have an imprimatura and what what the imprimatura does is that it actually help you create this ground that resembles the the dark halftones or the middle halftones so in this case i'm going to be using that approach and i'm going to be applying the imprimatura with a little bit of mineral spirits [Music] for the first step i'm going to draw with charcoal the portrait that way i can focus on understanding well my proportions dividing the shapes that i need to help me develop the painting reminding you that velasque is painting directly over the canvas using his brushes as i don't have so much control over my painting i'm going to use this drawing made with charcoal to actually create a more or less accurate drawing of the proportions so from here on i could continue the painting and develop in a more safe and secure way the second step is retracing my painting with brows in this case i'm going to use raw umber to re-draw the areas of shadow and the dark parts that will help me take the charcoal out of the canvas and leave a really good impression of the oils already in the canvas the purpose is to cover the surface and then leave a really good under drawing in the canvas [Music] so after we have our foundation we start painting from the half tones the idea of painting the dark halftones and the ones that are closest to the shadows is to create a representation between cool and warm colors that will create the vase for our portrait the idea would be to build up the light from this point and build up the darks from this point on you should also apply a few lighter touches to the painting to create and separate the highlights from the halftones from the shadows and then see a little bit of the volume of the portrait and how it's working the overall effect in this stage we are going to start applying the background and the idea of applying the background is to help us see the actual relationships with the skin tones when you apply the background you are creating a whole impression of light and relationship of what you see in the painting so basically what you are doing is looking at all the impression of the painting at the same time seeing the relationships in which the skin tones the background and the shirt are working another thing that you need to keep in mind is that in this process or velasquez process all the brushstrokes are very intentional that means that he's trying to paint describing the form and by describing the form he is building up the structure of the painting keep in mind that when he paints he is making everything very intentional so every brush stroke has its meaning every brush stroke has a purpose and that purpose is to describe or create something that is related to the anatomy or the light impression that he wants to create and and the overall effect that he sees with his cedar in front of him now to finish the painting what we need to do is just work on the transitions trying to create really soft edges remembering that velasquez one of the greatest discoveries of velazquez was understanding how the human eye worked that means if you are looking at me all the background will look a little bit more blurry and if you have figures around all those figures will look out of focus so uh in this process in which he paints all the very very sharp edges are left to the very last steps of the painting so the very first steps are creating the highlights and the darkest darks using a touch of white a touch of black and and this creates a more soft and interesting look for the painting so this is the representation that i did for this exercise [Music] this is all for today i hope you have found this process useful i invite you to visit our website and our social media in which we are constantly offering different types of classes different types of workshops not only enjoying and painting but also in sculpture and mixed media and we have a very rich variety of classes that we offer here in miami if you like this video hit the like button subscribe to our channel and at the end i will be leaving uh also my channel in which i talk a little bit more about my personal approach on painting and a few tips only in spanish but for now i want to thank you all for for being with us for supporting us and see you the next time you

Channel: Miami International Fine Arts - MIFA Miami

Views: 22,952

Keywords: Velazquez, Velazquez technique, velazquez painting, painting, diego velazquez, art, artist, art studio, art academy, atelier, oil painting, oil painting technique, miami, miami art studio, miami art class, miami artist, florida, usa, curso de pintura, aprender a pintar, como aprender a pintar al oleo, clase de pintura, pintura al óleo para principiantes, oil painting tutorial, oil painting for beginners, how to Paint

Id: KDzerEMoaOU

Length: 11min 43sec (703 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021