Mona Lisa - Painting Process

In retrospect, I probably did abandon this piece, even though its now varnished and framed!
Especially when you consider that Leonardo da Vinci painted the original in 1503 - 1506 and then tinkered around with it until 1517.
(The original was oil on poplar panel, original size 77cm x 53cm - also known as 'La Gioconda')

Canvas preparation

I wanted to make a full-size replica of the painting and my initial thoughts on the support was stretched linen, but I wanted to try my hand at stretching it myself so I bought all the necessary paraphernalia - stretcher pliers, staple gun and staples and some good heavy-weight stretcher bars. The nearest size was 30 inches x 20 inches (i.e. 76cm x 51cm) so already I was making a compromise.

Have you seen the price of triple-primed Belgian linen! If I bought some of that, I'd want to hang it as it is, without painting on it!

So I bought some 200gsm (that's the weight in grams per square metre) fine linen from somewhere in London and had a go at stretching it over my assembled stretcher bars. I didn't even get a chance to use the stretcher pliers - when I started pulling the linen (and I wasn't being heavy handed), it deformed the weave and the result was best described as 'hollows and bumps' on the linen surface, which did not noticeably reduce when sized and then primed with acrylic primer.

To rescue it, I decided to remove the linen from its stretcher bars and glue it to a plywood board. The result was a much smoother surface, free of the visible defects which arose during the stretching process.

Drawing

The drawing was done on a gridded piece of cartridge paper of the same size as the linen panel. I was taught to use the charcoal method to transfer a drawing to canvas. It's quite a laborious method which involves rubbing vine charcoal all over the back of a drawing until its completely covered, carefully taping the drawing to the canvas and then using a biro pen or something similar which can leave an impression, carefully and with some medium force, trace over the drawing lines so that the charcoal is imprinted on the canvas.

You usually have to use a Mahl stick so that your hand doesn't lean on the paper, otherwise you get a lot of unintentional charcoal transfer. Lastly, you need to reinforce the lines with black acrylic paint otherwise the charcoal disappears when you start painting and it has the potential to muddy your colours. I learned the oil-transfer method which is quicker, probably more archival and results in a much better cartoon (that's the term given to the 2-dimensional under-drawing).

I had read that Leonardo started on the background first, so if it was good enough for him...

For the sky I used Titanium White with a little Ultramarine Blue and some Coeruleum, scuffing the paint on randomly and mixing it on the canvas.

I was also learning about the fantastic qualities of Lead White oil paint which was basically banned in the EU - you can still get it, although you're supposed to have some official justification for using it e.g. your a conservator and need it for restoring old paintings.

Because of the ban, it's supply is limited and is really expensive, so I decided to have a go at making my own (but that's another story).

I thought I would see how this home-made lead white handled by painting some of it on her face and neck, mainly for the highlight areas.

Background

For the distant background I used Terra Verte, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber, Naples Yellow and Titanium White. I mixed some of the predominant colours on the palette and painted in the main shapes, starting with the darker colours and then applied some of the lighter colours with some on-canvas mixing.

As this was the distant background I kept the brush strokes loose and with little detail. Atmospheric perspective drops out reds and yellows so the colour palette is predominantly blues and muted greens.

For the near-background I used the same technique, applying the same paint colours straight from the tube and mixing on the canvas.

It's hard to judge the colours and indeed some parts of the image due to the heavily-yellowed varnish on the original.

More detail in this section, together with the introduction of more reds and yellows, helps to bring it forward within the overall perspective (at least that's the intention).

Clothing

I did the darker passages of the clothing with a mixture of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber, scrubbing the paint on thinly.

Other dark areas of clothing were made with an intense green instead of Ultramarine Blue, so that the dark passages were in colour harmony with the green areas of clothing.

I think clothing and drapery can generally be painted in quite a loose style and you don't want too much detail in it, causing it to become more of a focal point than it should. That said, when you zoom into the image of the original, the embroidery, for example, appears to have incredible detail - the stiches look three-dimensional!

The face and hands

Studying the face and hands, the skin appears to be quite yellow in the original and there is a distinct lack of any red, even on the lips, but this is probably more to do with the grimy varnish. I mixed two or three values of light brown, yellow and off-white and applied these colours to the face and hands, going from dark to light.

Despite some careful measurements during the drawing phase, her face looks a little bit chubby, especially on her right-hand side (though I do think the original has cherub-like features).

As human beings, we're conditioned to studying faces in our day-to-day interactions with people so we can usually spot 'things off' on the face; even if it's only a millimetre or so out.

When you critique your own work, they say you should write it down - so you remember it and commit to doing it, so here's mine:

Todo List

1. Fix the face - she's got 'baw jaws'. Needs more shadows on the face to better define the form.
2. The mouth is a bit crooked.
3. The eyes are a little too big.
4. Develop the form of the hands.
5. The paint is quite thin on the clothes - go over with more opaque passages.
6. Improve the shadows in the clothing.
7. Lighten the bit of grey in the clouds to her right - it's distracting.
8. Embroidery detail still to be done on the bodice.
9. Maybe add a unifying dark glaze in the bottom corners.

So, after going through my TODO list, this is the final version (before varnishing - I'll wait at least 6 months as is the recommended practice). I didn't really get to learn the sfumato technique - I think I'll have to practice that specifically using a couple of experimental canvases.