Foundation year.
I painted this of a fellow student, The technique was to cover the canvas in a thin glaze of water and acrylic. In this case a mixture of ultra marine blue and raw umber and titanium white. I dabbed where the light on the image was with soft tissue paper, you can use a hard bristled brush for this purpose too.
I used, lightly from the ground/canvas. This maps out where the light and mid-tone are. As each layer dried I added more layers using the same glaze mixture I started with, giving control to the tonal aspect of the painting.
Layering fine glazes in this way will eventually make you image more opaque. Reflective light that penetrates the glazes you make, actually bounces off the canvas and back to your eyes giving the value of tone, so this is a science.
The opacity helps define shape and feel to the painting, making it more 3D. I only added more detail at the very end of this process. I believe lines in painting and especially drawing don’t actually exist, there are only changes in tonal and colour value, so adding them at the end only serves the purpose of describing the person to the viewer.
Chiaroscuro; 