Blocking in

One technique some artists use is to “block in” the colors of their painting. This can be a loose painting of the dominant colors in the areas of the canvas where those colors will be. Or it may be the background colors in each appropriate section for a painting.

Here are several examples of what it looks like:

This article and photos by Marion Boddy-Evans is broken down into steps, with steps 1 and 2 being about blocking in: “Landscape Painting: Quiver Tree Step by Step.”

And this watercolor demonstration by Roger Simpson is quite interesting.

Here are a few of our artists, who do oil painting.

Jean Miller Harding – still life paintings

Yuri Klapoukh – portraiture and landscape paintings

Renee DiNapoli – floral paintings