Glazing an Underpainting with Color

Using this slow and methodical technique, Henry Riffe builds his paintings up through multiple layers of color

- Henry Riffe

It is said that drawing and values do most the “heavy lifting,” meaning to me that if the drawing is strong and the values are correct there is a likely possibility that a painting, even sparsely painted, will be a success. Consider this: Most of what we see is gray. Practically nothing that we see is the color straight out of the tube. John Singer Sargent was a master at painting grays. But for those of us who are a far cry from the likes of Sargent, how do we take that baby step to color that some of us need?