I tried pink underpaintings with these four pieces.

Finished paintings

I often see artists laying out pink/magenta underpainting on canvas. They often leave some pink/magenta edges in the following layers. It makes the painting very interesting because you can see through the warm and saturate underneath color. I am curious about this pink/magenta base color method. Since I have tried green underpainting for figurative/portrait pieces, I may also try pink/magenta underpainting as well.

Underpainting

Here are the pink underpaintings for these four pieces. At some point, I feel I was in a darkroom and working with negative films.

First color layer

Well, although I wish I can leave some pink edges from the underpainting, I still cover the canvas completely with “normal” color. I guess I need to learn how to “leave a blank spot”.

Summary

In my point of view, pink/magenta base for landscape is essentially the same as green foundation for portraits. It makes easier to spot your work progress. When you are painting flesh tone portraits, you cannot miss a green spot on the face or body. Vice versa, when you are painting greenish landscape, you cannot miss a saturated pink spot on the trees or lakes. Even after I cover the underpainting entirely with different color, it shows up more vivid in the end than starting directly with natural color.

It is an option. 😀