alla prima vs indirect painting in oils: when to finish in one session and when to build in layers

Paint the same subject direct and layered, learn what each method does to colour, edges and surface, and see how five masters' records show the difference.

6 min read

Oil painters build a picture in one of two ways. In alla prima (direct) painting you put down the final colour in a single session and blend it while the paint is wet. In indirect (layered) painting you make a dry preparation first, often a monochrome grisaille, and then modify it with glazes and scumbles. Solomon notes that the grisaille method has endured throughout the ages, while painting alla prima is comparatively modern and was rarely used by the old masters for elaborate work [1]. This guide has you paint the same small subject both ways, so you can see what each method does to colour, edges and surface.

What you need

Oil colours. Solomon's direct palette is two whites, yellow ochre, light red, vermilion, rose madder, cobalt, emerald, oxide of chromium, raw and burnt umber, and ivory black [2]. A smaller selection from that list is enough for a small study.
Spirits of turpentine and linseed oil [2].
A glazing medium for the indirect study: oil at first, and oil mixed with varnish once you have gained mastery [3].
Two supports of the same size, so the results can sit side by side.
A simple subject with a clear light direction, such as a head or a small still life.
A mix of soft and stiff brushes.

Step by step

Set up the subject and decide which study comes first. Paint both from the same lighting, and give the direct study one uninterrupted session.
Start the direct study. Make the first painting with turpentine alone. Too much oil darkens the colour and makes the surface somewhat soapy after a few paintings, while turpentine dries dead and leaves the paint slightly absorbent for later layers [2].
Paint in colour from the first stroke. Solomon's advice is to treat direct painting as the monochrome procedure carried out in toned colour instead of uncoloured tone [2].
Keep light and shade joined while the paint is wet. Solomon praises the way Gainsborough fused the light and shade of one portrait in the wet state [4].
Finish the study in that one painting. Solomon gives this as the reason a sketch often looks fresher than the picture finished from it: the light of the ground is not lost [4].
Check the colour before you stop. Direct work tends to miss the general colour, drifting to yellow or pink, or looking chalky where the lights are not warmed enough. Greys are often too violet, too green or, when pushed, too leaden [5].
Let the brush follow the form. Strokes across the form suggest softness, strokes swinging round it suggest fullness and foreshortening, and strokes running down it suggest hardness [6].
Start the indirect study with the preparation. Paint a grisaille in which you mentally take out the reds and yellows and render what would be left in nature [3]. Let it dry completely [3].
Glaze and scumble the yellow and red tones over the dry grisaille as they occur, much as you would tint an engraving with watercolour [3]. A glaze is a transparent coat of colour. A scumble is semi-opaque, so the painting beneath still shows through [3].
Expect cooler effects from scumbling over a darker ground. It tends toward coldness and can give a grey bloom [3].
Adjust the warmth by repeating or removing glazes. If a glaze fails you can take it off and the preparation stays intact for another attempt [5].
Set the two studies side by side and compare them using the sections below.

What each method gives you

Solomon lists a rich impasto, variety of texture, the beauty of underlying grey tones, lasting luminosity and a sense of oneness as the marks of the monochrome method. He associates vitality and spontaneity more closely with direct painting [1]. He sets Titian's appeal to the reposeful and dignified against Frans Hals's vitality, and says the two masters' methods and temperaments are opposed [1][5].

The difficulties differ too. In prepared work over a white and grey base, the tendency is to under-colour the flesh, which is why Solomon says many masters gilded their pictures finally with a warm glaze or coloured varnish [5]. In direct work the problem is hitting the colour in one go, and the transparent quality of prepared greys is hard to equal [5]. The grey tones are, in his words, the severest test of a colourist's capacity [5].

Thin direct work can also hold up well. Gainsborough rarely used decided impasto, and Solomon takes his clean, meagre white grounds as proof that a picture need not be loaded to last [4].

Common mistakes

Mixing a lot of oil into the first painting. It darkens the colour and leaves the surface soapy [2].
Glazing before the grisaille is dry. Solomon's sequence is to wait until it is quite dry [3].
Leaving the flesh under-coloured in a prepared picture and expecting the glaze to be optional [5].
Judging a direct study by its lights alone. The chalky lights and the violet, green or leaden greys are where it usually fails [5].
Reworking a direct study into a second and third session. You lose the light of the ground and the freshness of the sketch [4].
Assuming thick paint is what makes a picture last. Gainsborough's thin work argues against that [4].
Painting every area with the same stroke direction, which wastes a cheap way to describe form [6].

Study these paintings

These records describe how each painter's surface looks. They do not prove the exact order of layers, so use them as things to look for. Four of the five are patient, layered portraits; the Carolus-Duran is the direct one, so start the comparison there.

mistress-and-maid-lady-with-her-maidservant-holding-a-letter-by-johannes-vermeer: The record calls the brushwork nearly invisible, with imperceptible transitions in faces and hands that point to a patient, layered approach rather than direct painting. Look at how the maid's silhouette softens into the dark ground while the ermine spots and white collar keep crisper edges.

girl-holding-lemons-by-william-adolphe-bouguereau: The face is described as built from multiple thin layers of oil, with imperceptible transitions between light and shade. Compare it with the white drapery, where broader, more visible directional strokes stay integrated, and with the loosely handled background.

maria-carolina-de-borb-dues-sic-lies-by-franz-xaver-winterhalter: Flesh merges into its halftones through patient layering, and the dress edges are somewhat sharper to define the folds. The hair is the direct passage to find, with feathery strokes that follow the curl and highlights applied wet-into-wet.

henri-fantin-latour-by-carolus-duran: This is the direct study in the group. Carolus-Duran taught his pupils, Sargent among them, to paint the head straight off in colour, and the record describes exactly that: the darks of background and coat thinly washed in, the face blocked in its mid-tones from a limited palette of ivory black, burnt umber, raw sienna and white, then highlights added with thicker paint and a lighter touch. Its listed pitfall is the one Solomon names too: overworking the paint and losing the freshness of the first statement. Compare its edges with the Vermeer and Bouguereau above.

portrait-of-e-makovsky-artists-father-by-konstantin-makovsky: The face is blended wet-into-wet around the cheekbone and jaw, while the guitar gets crisper edges and thin linear strokes for the wood grain. The coat shows visible brushstrokes in the darks and smoother handling in the highlights.

Sources

The Practice of Oil Painting (Solomon J. Solomon (1910)), PREPARED AND DIRECT PAINTING COMPARED
The Practice of Oil Painting (Solomon J. Solomon (1910)), CHAPTER XV PAINTING IN COLOUR DIRECT FROM LIFE-
The Practice of Oil Painting (Solomon J. Solomon (1910)), COLOURING A MONOCHROME
The Practice of Oil Painting (Solomon J. Solomon (1910)), THE BRITISH SCHOOL
The Practice of Oil Painting (Solomon J. Solomon (1910)), PREPARED AND DIRECT PAINTING
The Practice and Science of Drawing (Harold Speed), SET OF FOUR PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SAME STUDY FROM THE LIFE IN DIFFERENT...