glazing and my struggles

6x6 oil on gessoed gator board

Here is the slow and unsteady progression I am making studying glazing and tonalist painting. I am working with Deborah Paris, the master of modern tonalist painting.  Use my pastel paintings as my inspiration I move forward to oil.
A tonalist usually first paints a grisaille (bottom)  which is something I often do with pastel pencil.The layering of transparent color is the tricky part because I don't really fully understand  the way the different  colors shime through and mix to make new ones. Any pieces of wisdom from a glazer out there?

The gessoed gator board on which I work produces a slick almost metal plate like effect. The brush strokes become very apparent . That is my favorite part.

Mozart Moment/Sanibel

10 x10 pastel on oil underpainting

underpainting
photo reference

A dramatic sunrise can easily cross over to tacky, right? With this in the back of my mind as a "NO, don't do that" I decided try. Still working from my Sanibel experience I began in my version of a tonalist-type method. I underpainted in one color. It seems work as a unifier for me. Next, I pre-selected my palette (and stuck to it!). The palette was similar to yesterday's but I decided to have a nuetral violet be dominant so that the orange would pop. (Sorry the photo is a little washed out)
Now, I need to glaze more of the oil studies, then out to the river for a sunset painting.

Tonalist underpaintings

tonal underpainting, 5x7 oil on gesso board
tonal underpainting, 3.25x7 oil on gesso board
tonal underpainting, 6x8 oil on raymar canvas panel
I am taking Deborah Paris' online Painting the Luminous Landscape course. I have always admired her work and have wished to take a course with her. She is a tonalist and when she works she does an underpainting in transparent colors like shale and burnt sienna. My tendency is to do a watercolor underpainting in intense colors.. so I am researching and experimenting something new. Even my cat Kins (the studio muse) looked at me as if to say," What no magenta?"
The course itself is really cool. We post work on a site and Deborah or other classmates comment. Deborah is great. It was only been 3 days and she has posted demos, given reading lists, lots of comments and other goodies. You will see my struggle posted on here for the next month...here we go.

Feel free to comment and critique friends!