... but a brand-new, straight-from-the-box, oil pastel by Sennelier. Only for putting lips on canvas!

• See Also: Not Lipstick I

^{Image: © 2009 Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc}

I noticed today there's been some searching for info on underpainting. Like so many things in painting, it depends on what painting style and approach you're using. At one end of the spectrum an underpainting can be as detailed as the final thing is going to be except it's done in tones of gray. Color is then glazed over this, using the underpainting as an integral part of the painting.

At the other end it's loosely painted blocks of color roughly indicating where the main shapes of the composition are going to be. The underpainting gets obscured and hidden as additional layers of color are added to build up the painting. As always, there are all the variations between these two extremes. Options, that's part of the fun of painting!

See Also:
• Art Glossary: Underpainting
• 7 Approaches to Covering a Canvas

"...allow the finished work time to find its rightful place in the artist's heart and mind ... a chance to be understood better by the maker. Then when the time comes for others to judge the work, their reaction (whatever it may be) is less threatening. "

-- Art and Fear page 40.

See Also:
• 10 Things Never to Say About a Painting
• How to Critique a Painting
• Painting Critique Checklist

^{Photo © Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc}

"Black paint can be made of soot and galls, peach stones and vine twigs or even ivory... But one of the more notorious ingredients in the seventeenth century was bone black, which was said by some to be made from human corpses. [But] in fact it was not black [that] was made from dead human beings. It was brown."
-- Victoria Finlay, Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox p112.

The color in question was "mommia", or "mummy", a thick, tar-like substance made from Ancient Egyptian mummies that was said to a beautiful, translucent brown. If you're not the squeamish type, you can find out a more more about mummy color here... If you are squeamish, just know it's got nothing to do with a mother color.

See Also:
• Colors of Ancient Egypt (From the About.com Guide to African History)