What's All This Then?

No, I'm not planning to start making Martian dolls...............this is a new doll I'm working on and this green look is the underpainting. I often do this to prepare a doll head (or a piece of sculpture) before painting. It looks odd, but underpainting is a time-honoured practice among artists. You might have seen an example of an unfinished painting from the Renaissance, where it was widely practiced - the underpainting might be in some kind of sienna colour, but figures were often underpainted in green. The idea is that the underpainting will show through the final layers of paint very subtly and will impart a depth to the painting that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. Cool tones work well - blue, green or purple, but I have also used red in certain cases and I often use dark brown. I will post more pictures of this head as I finish it, to hopefully show how this idea works. The key is subtlety - if too much of the green is evident, this doll will just look sick!