Underpainting?

(example 1, the underpainting).  Underpaintings are often referred to as the early stage in which an artist loosely blocks in the values, shapes and some texture information.  Later color will be  added opaquely or as a glaze tint  to the underpainting or, the  grisaille( “gris” French for gray). The underpainting may be applied to a previously toned surface or may be the toning instrument itself.  My examples are in acrylic. The first example is a single  neutral  color concocted from a bath of gloss medium and translucent colors ( such as ultramarine blue, or transparent red oxide,  or dioxine violet,  or hansa yellow,  orNapthol red) which is then generously brushed or wiped or poured onto the surface.  If an acrylic artist wishes to extend the time of wet paint then an acrylic retarder can be added to the solution or, the retarder can be wiped on the surface just prior to painting, like you would grease a metal cookie pan. ( New “Open” acrylics do not offer the same experience as acrylics when they are wet  in spite of  their advertising claims.)   Prior to  blocking in with  paint artists often prepare a series of preliminary sketches  to give them confidence to experiment in the wet acrylic ( or oil).   Now that my bath of neutral acrylic color has been applied the surface I create a variety of textures which indicate contours  ( tilt, slant, surface topography), foliage and other material textures and, smoother areas for light and atmosphere.  Linear perspective and texture perspective gradients are also generated now while the paint is wet.  You can see this in the first example, the underpainting.  The remaining three examples  are here:(example 2);(example 3);(example 4). These final three examples share the  roughly the same neutral underpainting.