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Drawing Basics: To Tone or Not to Tone

16 May 2011 by judith St. Ledger - Roty

Oil painting by Judith St. Ledger-Roty, illustrating how an undertone warms a work up.
Toning your surface can add a lot of dimension
to the end product.
Hi All,

This is my first blog post for Artist Daily. I’m a lifetime student of art like so many of you, and I look forward to sharing our mutual love of drawing and painting as well as swapping tips and methods about how we each work in our own unique way.

I have always loved the outdoors and always had the desire to paint figures as well as animals, like horses, in the landscape. That desire has remained constant over the years that I have been drawing or painting in the studio. But I’ve found that wherever I am, indoors or out, there are many foundational techniques that apply to all the drawing and painting I do.

One is to go back and forth between subject matters. I have found that I need a continuing balance between the figure and landscape (and drawing and painting for that matter!).

I have also found that toning my support, whether canvas or paper or board, is something I often do now. I’m showing two works to illustrate the difference between toning and not toning.

Pencil drawing by Judith St. Ledger-Roty, showing how not toning a surface can lead to a stark result.
The surface of this pencil drawing wasn't toned—a missed
opportunity to create depth in the work before the first stroke.
The first image, a painting, has been toned with cadmium orange—you can see the underlying color along the top edge of the painting—which is quite warm compared to the snow scene I painted. To make the tree look warm, I scratched down to the canvas level through the paint of the snow to make the bark and branches. Most of the visible tree is simply the undercoat showing through, a method taught to me by landscape painter Sara Linda Poly. But without the undertone, this would have been a waste of time. No undertone--no warmth.

The second is a landscape pencil drawing with no undertoning. It looks stark compared to the warmth of the painting. I’ve taken this lesson to heart, toning my surface or using toned paper regardless of the subject or medium I am working on or with. I consider this one of several drawing basics, and can really set a work apart and give it depth, even if you are working on quick and easy drawings.

What do you say? Do you agree or have you found toning to be a complication to your work? How so?

--Judith

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Comments

 
Beatty wrote
on 17 May 2011 3:46 AM

Judith, Have you ever done this toning with  watercolors? Susan

CalicoYellow wrote
on 17 May 2011 10:31 AM

I have to admit, I have not worked much with using an under tone in my paintings.  However, of late I took a work shop where indeed we did an under tone and I was amazed.  What really sets up the painting I think is your choice of color for the under tone as it sets the stage for the final rendering.

lfarist wrote
on 17 May 2011 10:36 AM

When I tone a canvas I find that my paintings are more accurate and interesting.

Juan Quiles wrote
on 17 May 2011 12:10 PM

I always tone before painting any subject. It helps establish a neutral foundation for my paintings and eliminates the "intimidating white" of the plain canvas.

I have found that toning gives my paintings more interest and a better overall look.

Kisu wrote
on 17 May 2011 12:44 PM

I agree.  I started using colored papers with watercolor and gouache, and also charcoal and pastel and it was fun to introduce another color and value component to the composition.  I've also been partially to completely toning canvases in my oil painting.  Sometimes it's just a neutral 'wash' of thinned out paint, and other times it's a heavier, more complete application of a color of higher chroma.  On the latter, I've found I have to wait about 24 hours for the undertone to dry or else the initial sketching of the subject gets too muddy.  

JSLATE wrote
on 18 May 2011 8:10 AM

Greetings Judith,

I must be missing something here. First you have two very different mediums here. Second in oil if you mix your paint correctly there's no need to scratch off paint to expose the underpainting, just put warm colors in the trees. Then the pencil drawing is a black and white drawing and all colors of gray in between,an underpainting would be gray paper maybe. I understand a background color and a fore ground color. Please explain.

JSLATE

Pat Vanderbush wrote
on 23 May 2011 12:51 PM

Hi:  I love the idea of using tone to create warmth.  I will spend my summer in the

mountains above Mesa AZ.  I plan to tone my canvasses and paint a lot of scenes.

Loved the article.  

newcraft wrote
on 23 May 2011 9:15 PM

question  Would you tone a pencil drawing with paint or just pencil shading or crosshatching etc.?  Thanks

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