Caravaggio's Technique: Grounds & Paint Application

[00:00:01]hello everyone and welcome to another live edition  here on my channel i want to apologize for a delay   today uh we've had technical difficulties with  the sound it's never easy to do live presentations   I want to start by acknowledging a person  that i really admire here on youtube   and for inviting me recently to his channel and  we did an interview together his name is Cesar   Cordova and i want to thank him for uh having me  his channel we we did a video about Caravaggio   which this is sort of the follow-up uh version  of that video uh he has an amazing following   on here on youtube and i've had a lot of his  subscribers coming by the channel and thanking   me for the content that we're sharing here on  the channel and also asking a lot of interesting   questions so i'm doing this live in part because  i wanted to do a collaboration about Caravaggio.   Cesar is a wonderful painter and he's been  doing research on Caravaggio for many years   and he recently shared some amazing insights  and also some research that he has gathered   so i want to acknowledge uh all his help  and his great friendship i really appreciate   what he's been doing in his channel if you haven't  checked out his channel make sure to find in the   description below his channel so you can check  out this series of videos he did i believe it's   four or five videos uh where we talk about  Caravaggio and Rembrandt and other techniques   that i've been discussing here on the channel  and also common interests that we have so and   we have we share so that's a really a wonderful  thing about youtube that i've discovered that you   know just being able to get together with other  painters other artists and shared the knowledge   so and we're both committed to uh referencing  materials and doing you know extensive research   so i want to acknowledge uh his his wonderful help  so yeah so today i want to explore a little bit of   Caravaggio's techniques we're going to be sharing  some videos of some reconstructions of the grounds   i have some images of some of my recent  trips to Italy that i was able to gather   some exhibitions that i checked out of  Caravaggio's paintings in Naples back in 2019   and just there's a wealth of information  that i've gathered over the years   is certainly a lot of information that i i i don't  dare share all of it in one video just be too too   too long so we're just going to do a series  of videos on Caravaggio's techniques so today   i just want to focus on Caravaggio's grounds this  is a issue that i've been covering for the last   months and we've talked about Spanish painters  that were influenced by Caravaggio such as Murillo   we've talked about Velasquez Zurbaran rivera  and today i want to talk about some of the   materials and techniques that  Caravaggio will have been using   there is a big or i guess a growing consensus  that Caravaggio used a very dark ground   with the grisaille there's a lot of videos here  on youtube that describe that process and indeed   he uses that process but that's not the only  process that he uses to create his paintings uh   as my research uh you know has revealed uh there's  uh an evolution as well which is to be expected a   lot of artists such as Velazquez and Rubens and a  lot of great painters go through an evolutionary   stage where they're trying out new things and this  is the same with Caravaggio so um i want to share   with you guys um an interview that i did just an  observed of the interview that we did with Cesar   Cordova where we're talking a little bit about  uh his use of uh underpaint or a dead color stage   and i wanna let's just take a look at that  video now so recently and this is just to recap   Cesar and i talked about the idea of an underpaint  or a dead color and this dead color being used in   the preliminary stages and we talked about um how  Caravaggio might been using velaturas or scumbles   to create some of these beautiful  complex flesh tones that's something that   a lot of artists are aware of and if you're not  aware of it well check out this great interview we   sort of examined a few paintings and we talked  about using this amazing website that you could   find in the description below it's called halta  definizione which says i was so gracious to   share with me and i was able to go in and and  you know take a look at some of these very high   detailed images of Caravaggio this is such an  amazing tool for artists that are wanting to   just get a closer look for a lot of us you  know it's very difficult to you know to take   a look at these paintings uh even when you're  at the museum you can't get very close with them   so you know because of restrictions so  with this technology now you could see   the very minute uh details you know the the  laying of the paint how the paint is applied   so um in this interview that he uh shared in his  channel we talked about um this you know this   uh techniques and how he's using an underpaint  or dead color similar to what i've done   in with other artists such as Vermeer and this is  important because this sort of has a relationship   to verdaccioo painting of the early renaissance  and later on there's an evolution to uh grisaille   painting and Caravaggio does grisaille painting  which is black and white but it's not just he   doesn't just do grisaille there's a gamma of um of  under under color excuse me of dead color layers   uh that range perhaps from a grass eye to you  know a sort of a greenish tint and you see that   in other artists as well that are you working  on a tender breast style so it's not necessarily   always a grisaille that they're doing so i  want to share some images with you guys um   let's see so um i think or i think well the first  thing what we're going to do is we're going to   uh share um a video uh of the  preparation of the ground so   Caravaggio was using a brown ground  Cesar shared with me uh in and by the way   if any of you that are joining uh and thank you  for coming by i have any questions you could   at some point during the live presentation ask  questions i know a lot of you that speak Spanish i'm just going back and forth because  i do i do have a lot of audience   here that speak Spanish so that's how we're  going to work the multi-language uh situation   so um i'll you could ask the questions in Spanish  and i could answer the questions in english and   then translate them or answer them in Spanish  and translate them in english that'll work so   um yeah so in terms of the ground uh i've created  a chart here with that i want to share with you   guys with the grounds the just the diversity of  ground colors these are reconstructions these are   gray grounds as you can see here in this area  there's a gray ground and also cream color grounds   there's orange grounds chocolate grounds  right here and then the more traditional   radish grounds so these are i just took the um  the national gallery technical bulletin they have three images or three paintings that they've  studied and i've shared that link in the   description below for the national gallery  they published this article years ago and   they did a survey of three paintings and in the  three paintings there's three different grounds   so that in itself shows you that Caravaggio was  not just using one technique throughout his life   i mean he's using a very dark ground towards  the end of his life he's using a more orange   colored ground such as the ground that we  prepare last time and i have it right here   this is more of the orange colored ground  that i've shared last time so these grounds   have a significant impact on the way that you  apply paint and the formula of these grounds   is really important as well you could get the oil  to the ground too oily if you don't put chalk or   enough chalk so what is the right proportion well  that is open to experimentation um and i want to   share with everyone recently uh we've decided to  do a panel and painting support uh canvas support   preparation class or workshop that is coming  up i'm going to be sharing that information   at the end of the live presentation and in this  present excuse me in this workshop we're going to   study the proportions of these materials it's  important to get these these proportions just   right because the ground could get too oily  not hold enough paint uh it could peel off   i mean it's it could be a real mess so um  just finding out the the materials in these   um scientific studies is not enough it's important  to experiment and to have a sound procedure on how   to prepare these materials so and that's what i've  been doing i've sort of i take this scientific   information and i start reconstructing by using  exactly the same materials usually earth pigments   linseed oil or walnut oil in this case mostly  linseed oil since it's stronger and more flexible   they find mostly linseed oil in Caravaggio's  grounds but in the upper layers they find   walnut oil the use of calcium carbonate is  really important and um recently uh with this   uh pdf that Cesar shared i was able to reconstruct  a brown on the ground this image right here this   ground which is umber and lead white crown  it's a double brown ground which is uh   documented by a pdf that he shared with me and i  will be sharing that description as well in the i   will be sharing that link in the description below  so um let's just take a look at this uh video that   i put together with you guys or let's see let's  take a look at the image yes so this is an image   from a double brown ground this is the first  layer has calcium carbonate and a brown pigment   earth pigments such as umber or even perhaps  a brown ochre this is telling because usually   the brown pigments such as umber or raw umber  could be burnt umber or brown ochre they have a   content of manganese and uh this is what they  find and uh in the first layer and then there's   a second layer that has uh lead white and  umber and that's essentially what they find   and uh what i did is i just reconstructed this  ground and using the traditional you know knife to   apply just to see what kind of surface you get so  let's just go ahead and take a look at that video   so i started with one one first layer okay let it  dry thoroughly and with the knife i scraped this   layer smooth okay this is umber and calcium  carbonate okay this is this knife i recently   uh had made and it's just amazing you  could scrape this uh this painting smooth   and then on the second layer i added let  white the stack process light white makes this   really beautiful paint with the umber and i was  applying it with the same knife and it comes out   very very smooth it's a very smooth priming  and with this knife you could apply it you know   very smoothly very evenly this is the  traditional method i've had a lot of   people ask me how do you get the canvas smooth  and this is essentially the way to do that   it comes out very smooth it will eliminate the  canvas weave and then with this bristle brush i'm   going in one direction this is just  to smooth it out and make it more   um more even essentially and then i'm going on  the opposite direction there's instructions on   how to do this by Spanish manuscripts and that's  where i got um well essentially the procedure   to use both knife and brush so this is it  just a typical way of preparing a surface   from the 17th century and i've had a lot of you  ask me well uh at double ground i think i had a   subscriber of mine uh tell me well uh why would  the painter use a double ground isn't isn't that   just a monochromatic uh if it's bla umber and  white isn't just a monochromatic uh you know   under painting like a grisaille right on top of  that first initial layer and uh unfortunately   that's a theory that a lot of you uh fall back  on but that's not the case it's a homogenous uh   you know thick layer that is very even and it's  you know exist all over the the painting surface   so essentially um that is you know a ground is  part of the ground so and uh lead white and umber   is a mixture that is used by a lot of artists  Jusepe de Rivera caravaggio murillo so and even   Pacheco mentions the use of adding  a little bit of lead white to give   the the priming the paste a little bit of body  um this makes it a lot smoother it evens out   and it makes it less absorbent so um yeah  it's a really pretty standard procedure so   um there's a lot of artists that did variations  of this uh primings sometimes they would use   raw sienna and red ochre sometimes  there's yellow ochre and red ochre   there's just a whole array as you saw in the chart  that i i shared with you guys um actually let's   take a look at those uh that chart so i'm going  to share with you some of the pigments here so in   this one for example this is one from the supper  at Emmaus um and that's this one has uh earth   pigments it has a little bit of lead white and  calcite okay that's a that's a pretty standard and   you see that in a lot even Tiepolo about in the  18th century he's using sort of an orange ground   in this one there's red ochre okay red ochre  calcite and a little bit of lead white this one   has umber black this one they find in Salome um  and i believe is the head of Salome or it may be a   i'm not sure of the title but so in the this  is from the national gallery technical bulletin   and this has black umber lead white and a little  bit of calcite okay these have lead white okay uh   i believe it's buying black a little bit of  umber this one has just umber this is a double   ground this is the one that i just showed you  and then this one has lead white black and a   little bit of calcite and a little bit of umber  so you see there the very different variations   so just to try to put Caravaggio on a you know  in a box and say Caravaggio's use just uses a   uh a chocolate ground all over throughout  his whole life it's just not really doing   the research uh correctly so it's important this  is something that i like to do here in my channel   i like to explore the evolution of artists and  how they're using their materials so that's   an important aspect so um i want to take a  look at some images now let's take a look at   this painting of uh Cavalieri di Malta and  this is a painting at the uh palazzo Piti   in uh in Florence i took this photo myself years  ago and this painting has a sort of a red ocherish   ground uh it's it's more of an on the cooler  red side and let me just bring this back up it   it's probably more similar to this ground here  okay and let's take a look at that a close-up okay   and that's the next image i believe  we have the next image let's see there it is so there's uh portions of the ground  that are being that are being used in the face   there's also uh the use of uh impasto he's  dragging the brush in areas to create the   turret you know to if to achieve a turbid medium  effect which is something that we're going to   see in a little bit in another analysis that  i have prepared for you guys uh you could see   that this technique is very loose uh he's sort of  it's very economical he's just dragging the the   brush in areas uh some areas are painted very  solidly some other areas are just left uh you   know where the ground is left exposed so and this  sort of becomes his standard technique later on   in his early days he's painting more opaquely  where he's covering the whole entire ground and   this is typical i mean you see this in Velazquez  and in the early days they're using a very uh   polished technique and as they get older they  you know loosen up the technique a little bit and   they become more economical i have another image  here and it's um this is the use of the ground   so this is the perfect a perfect example of the  turbid medium effect so if you take the lead white   and you apply it thickly in areas then you have  impostor but if you drag you keep dragging that   lead white and putting it you know almost with  no medium or you could use medium or no medium   by just dragging over the red ground he's using  that as sort of a half tone and it has a beautiful   this has a beautiful effect um this red color is  mixing with the white and creating an optical gray   and this is a standard technique that Caravaggio  and a lot of painters from the 17th century used   they didn't paint everything opaquely as a lot of  us believe you know um they use the ground it's   that's you know it's a big part of their  technique and it's really a gorgeous effect so   let's just move on to the next image so here we  have a technique that is more typical of his slate   style where he's using the chocolate  colored ground and dragging the light   lead white right over that brown ground and uh  he's i i don't believe he's using a grisaille or   you know or anything of of similar to a grisaille  in this painting i think it's just mostly direct   with color and in his earlier period he's using  more of the grisaille technique but by this time   he sort of abandons it i mean there in the ear you  could see that's just essentially the ground with   perhaps some retouching and this reminds me a lot  of rivera rivera was a painter that was influenced   by Caravaggio he's he was working in Naples  and precisely this exhibition i saw in Naples   uh in 2019 where he had the paintings that  Caravaggio does and executes while he was   on the run in Naples and by the time that he  gets to Naples he seems to be in a rush i mean   of course he's on the run um his paintings become  a lot more looser he's using cheaper materials and   their the paintings are executed very rapidly and  you could see that an artist like rivera would   have used that technique that's what he was seeing  Caravaggio used so he would have been influenced   more from this style of Caravaggio than perhaps  his earlier style so let's move on to the next   image so here's another amazing uh passage from  one of Caravaggio's paintings and this these   all these photos i took um in i believe is the  exhibition was Caravaggio in Naples it was at the   capo de monte museum in 2019 and i just happened  to be there and i was able to take these amazing   photos close-ups and there was no one around this  you know capo de monte is not a museum that is   well transited by you know travelers so it's a  real treat to go there if you have not checked   it out make sure to uh you know visit this amazing  museum in the city of Naples so there you see how   he's for the lights he's using a lot of impasto  so it's a fully loaded brush and he's dragging   i mean in there's areas that are you know very  opaque and then in the half tones in the turns   when he wants to turn a form he sort of lets the  brush stroke break and that break really creates   a beautiful contrast in a beautiful turning of  the form this is something that Rembrandt uses uh   you know uh later on in his life as well it's a  method that is employed by a lot of artists not   just Caravaggio or Rembrandt a lot of artists  uh is probably one of the main engineers of   this style of using the broken brush stroke  to turn form and this is probably one of the   my most favorite techniques in painting so  it's almost like a what i call in Spanish a mag it's a it's like a half drag so it's  something that you could do with a soft brush   uh if you're using bristle brushes  you could achieve this effect but   uh these very subtle dragging effects you  you're able to achieve more uh more uh   successfully with a sable brush or a squirrel  hair brush or even a pole cat hair brush so   uh something that it you know brush out is  soft and there you can see where he leaves   the ground exposed and then he retouches with  the dark perhaps a glaze here and there as well   so these are painters are using the whole gamma  of effects they're not just painting smoothly   although Caravaggio in some paintings does  paint very smoothly as well so let's just   go ahead and move on to the next image so  another great detail here um this this is a   painting technique that is more much more  polished uh he's painting more much more opaquely   impassable in the lights and some glazing in  the darks right over the ground so it's not   just full you know full light and then just ground  there's intervention there i mean he's going back   into the darks and retouching the darks right  over the ground with veil with perhaps you know   very little white um there's that's something  that's really interesting when you look at the   x-rays you see very little use of white in the  in the uh in the dark areas and it makes sense   today we use white everywhere and a painter  like Caravaggio would have been lightening   the dark colors with perhaps a yellow ochre color  so or even a red ochre color so there was no use   of light colors like such as light white in  the dark masses so real really beautiful um   detail here of the impasto and there's  areas that are softened very beautifully   so that's something that i was discussing with  Cesar uh we were talking in the painting that we   uh i believe the painting is true to the whole  offenders a lot for niece and um the painting is   very painted very with a polished style and that's  very smooth every brush stroke is accounted for   he does retouch on top but these paintings  that i'm showing you are a lot looser and   here you can see that Caravaggio's sort of more  you know it's maturing in his style and he's   much more confident with his brush  work uh he's able to achieve a lot more   without you know with the economy of means  essentially he's just you know picking out the   light areas and just leaving the dark ground to  do you know most of the work so let's just move on   so another beautiful detail here and  here you can see that this is a very   very very solidly painted head he's supplying  there i mean when you look at this it has the   whole gamma it has glazes it has impastos it has  smooth painting it has you know opaque painting   transparent paintings so it's not just one i  wouldn't just say this is all painted opaquely and   that's what it is and end of story there's a  lot of there's a lot of knowledge here there's   a whole gamma of knowledge and the whole plethora  of painting techniques and that's something that   i keep going off about in here in the channel  because these painters didn't just paint with one   single method such as you know academic painters  from the 19th century where they're just filling   the canvas with you know just a very very smooth  opaque layer and that's it and just letting it   dry and maybe retouching it this this is an artist  that knows the gam the whole gamma of techniques   and that's something that i really admire  about Caravaggio he really understands the   idea of saturation you know light saturation by  painting the lights very very opaquely and uh   you know veiling the shadows so when there were  other followers of Caravaggio in this exhibition   and the sheer solidity of the light mass in his  paintings versus his followers was uncanny to me   you could just see that he was just very very  aware of how that dark round will darken your   paintings if if the lights are not painted very  solid and and he does that i mean he's this is a   painting that is very solidly painted you know  it's it's very opaque in the lights so let's   just move on to the next image uh i i believe  that's those are the images that we have so   let's just go ahead and i did an analysis here  now what i what we've done uh in Cesar's videos   we logged on to halta definition which is the  website that you can find in the description below   and we did an analysis and what i did is i  pre-recorded uh some details from the martyrdom of   saint Matthew which is the reconstruction of the  ground that you saw so the martin of sam Matthew   has a double ground that is brown uh ochre or  excuse me some sort of umber color mixed with   calcite and then a second layer that has umber  and lead white over this Caravaggio applies one   or two layers perhaps three layers in some areas  there is pentimento in a lot of this painting   so i want to you know remind you about that so  what i want to do is i want to just show you some   images some close-up images that i pre-recorded  so let's just take a look at that video of   the martyrdom of saint Matthew so this is halta  definizione you could get very very very close   to these paintings and analyze the way that  they're painted you know by just getting close   so the first thing that i wanted to do is i  wanted to find that the color of the ground   and i started just getting really really close to  the different areas and you could usually find it   in the in the borders in between the figures  this is an area where a lot of artists use   the ground so there's the brown ground okay  and it's just sort of like a dark reddish color   sort of like a chocolate color um and this is  something that is typical i mean when you're   painting uh images on this dark grounds you don't  have to be so aware of the negative space there's   the dead color okay that we keep talking about in  this case it's sort of like a grayish green color   uh usually you know my experiments with a lot of  these painters is that they use some sort of ochre   or sienna mixed with black and perhaps even a red  color but very limited red color because you want   to keep the dead color you know in a very sort of  neutral cool color so the warm colors go on top   and there you can see the retouching uh perhaps  with the vermilion or the red ochre lead white   and yellow ochre that goes on top of this  greenish color or this green green dead color   that's something that's very typical and he just  leaves it exposed in areas so he does the modeling   with this dead color just like you know we've done  in a lot of other videos and then he'll retouch   the areas of warmth with the bright colors such  as the vermilion or red ochre so another amazing   use of paint is the turbid medium effect which  is essentially dragging that light uh white lead   right over the dark ground and you can see where  he gets by just thinning the paint with the brush   very smooth brush he gets this beautiful  effect and there he's doing it once again   if you take a light color such as lead white and  you put it over a dark color very thinly you get   this sort of grayish optical gray and i used  the chemical analysis and the cross sections to   from this very area to sort of dissect a lot  of the way that this painting would have been   executed you could see that by thinning you  know by painting areas thicker Caravaggio's   just accentuating the sense of light and  getting just you know really beautiful luminous   effect over this dark ground this is a you  know a amazing painting i was able to see this   painting in Rome and uh it's on although it's  darkly lit it's very hard you know to to get   close to this painting but with this technology  you're able to get you know uh very close   and you're able to see exactly the whole plethora  of effects that Caravaggio would have been using   it's not just painted smooth with you know um with  with blended passages it's there's passages that   are dragged uh some areas are painted smooth some  there's you know dark glazing there's scumbling   some colors are transparent some colors are  opaque so there's a whole gamma of effects here   and you can see how he sort of omits details  as well some areas i mean you don't you really   can't see the detail inside the eyes so he's  willing to let areas go and uh and fall into sort   of a graphic shape to create that unity in his  paintings that's you know telling of his technique   and there you can see the under painting as well  the the dead color and he's retouching on top with   um perhaps you know glazes now in what some of  the chemical analysis and the cross sections   they find layers of lead white right over the the  brown ground and then they'll find a dark glaze   and then light again and then dark again which  is really interesting Cesar and i talked about   that in one of his videos they find that in some  areas he's you know he's applying this translucent   glaciers right over the light and that makes sense  i mean he's probably glazing down the light so he   could push the dark once again and then regain the  light in sort of a form so to achieve the turbid   medium effect this area that i'm showing you right  here has two layers of lead white uh with a glaze   in between and a glaze on top so it's interesting  to see that because most likely he he puts a final   veil it could be that he puts a final veil in  uh in a transition to a shadow or something like   that so it's very difficult to sort of narrow  down and say Caravaggio painted this exact way   there's many techniques going on all at  once and there is just you know uh it's   very confusing so it's uh my suggestions for a  lot of you that are doing this type of analysis   take each part as a as an individual case study  and you know really analyze what's going on there   it's important to analyze if the paint was applied  dry or if it was applied with uh you know with a   medium applied to the surface such as wet into wet  medium so yeah so that's probably my my conclusion   about a lot of Caravaggio's techniques and in  the future i'm going to be doing a recreation   by doing perhaps a painting recreation from  this i love this painting i mean look at this   self-portrait the way that he's applying the  glazes uh you know in some of the the transition   planes and then in the lights he's just dragging  you know he's just using full impasto so   a lot of information could be gathered from  these um these websites that you could you   know log on and visit you know and just spend  hours just you could even do copies directly from   the this website that Cesar has been sharing with  us so i have some questions here let's see um   i have yeah i'm going to take a look at some of  these questions so first of all i want to welcome   everyone for coming by um i have a few questions  here in Spanish and uh i wanted uh bienvenidos uh so i'm being asked are these linen fabrics where  they wet or wet it before they were prepared with   rabbit skin glue and the question it's it's  let's just give context to that question so   a lot of linens prior to the  19th century were not wet spun   linen meaning that there was not a  commercial process where they would spin the linen with water so they would deform  the water excuse me that the linen could deform so   if you take a linen that is not wet spun and you  apply rabbit skin glue to this uh the linen will   deform okay you will get the you know buckling on  the in and it will dry that way uh right today we   have high quality linens that are wet spun and  this will not happen let me go back to Spanish okay so we're going to and there's different  methods and these methods are not easy i've had a   lot of my students be very frustrated depending  their with their linens that are prepared the   old-fashioned way and if you are not sure uh if  your linen's wet spun do not take the risk because   if you're preparing a very large canvas you could  quite literally you know put rabbit skin glue   and deform your linen and not have a way back so  um it's it's important to so as a general rule   you know you could just stretch a canvas give  it you know a couple layers of water and just   let it dry and if it's deformed then you stretch  it again and then you rabbits can glue it so um so excellent question and yes uh you could  i've experienced that myself i bought some   cheap linen years ago and you know that it was  not wet spun and i spend hours trying to correct   already uh rapid skin glued canvas so you  could you could really have a headache   in your hands if you if you don't take this  precaution i have another question here um so yeah a lot of questions and we have uh  amazing crowd here from latin America that's   wonderful thank you for coming by uh by the way  a lot of the videos are translated in Spanish   if you go to the subtitles you could  essentially find the subtitles in Spanish i have another question here and again thank  you for your amazing questions this is great   um let's see um tt i have a question tt thank you  for coming by uh which medium would you suggest   for multiple glazing especially if you want them  very translucent so um the glazing so let's see   my glazing medium that i usually recommend if you  could if you have access in the case of Caravaggio   let's just talk about Caravaggio first so for  glazing a painter like Caravaggio and a painter   like rivera or even Velazquez they're using some  sort of oil that has been prepared with heat   sunlight has been bodied somehow so if you  cook oil with heat and some sort of dryer   the oil gets thicker and then you could  thin this oil with some sort of solvent   such as spike oil of lavender or  turpentine i usually recommend spike   of lavender because the turpentine could be  toxic especially if you're working indoors if you're using sun thicken oil or sun wash  thickened oil this is an excellent medium for   glazing but a lot of us do not have the time to  make these oils i've recommended these oils in   the channel for you know for many many videos  and a lot of us just do not have access so   another modern equivalent medium that is excellent  is liquid you could take liquid mix it with a   couple drops of regular oil and be on your  way glazing and it will dry perfect and then   let that dry and then you know layer on top so  yeah so there's a lot of um uh you know a lot of   mediums that you could use and there's a lot of  commercial mediums that they're selling nowadays   but i like to keep it simple some artists  use resins i don't i they don't really find   a lot of resins in painters such as Caravaggio or  Velazquez and their paintings are fair fairly well   painters that have used a lot of resins during  the 19th century especially their paintings are   in horrible conditions so i like to stay away  from the resins i've had a lot of people tell   me well you know i they find resins and resins you  know are important well if you want to use resins   that's fine but the research points that resins  become brittle and they crack uh a lot faster than   you know embodied oil so um that is  my my take on it so um now there's a   small detail that i want to share and  unfortunately i'm not going to get to it   during this live presentation because Caravaggio  is just too big i've done a lot of research   and there's a lot of other details that i  want to go into such as engraving the drawing   into the wet ground which in the next video i'm  going to cover uh i'm going to be talking about   the under drawing in the next video uh you  know so i'm doing a whole series of videos   about Caravaggio uh and usually i do a recreation  as well so i like to take my time and talk about   things that are very detailed um but there's also  a detailed um that has come up and it's the use of   emulsions by some of my other uh subscribers they  have mentioned the use of of you know egg tempera   mixed with oil and Caravaggio does use this  medium to retouch a lot of his paintings and   i'm going to be recreating that medium in the next  videos so that's going to be in the future um so   again this is a wonderful crowd i want to thank  everyone for joining uh i've been traveling for   the last couple of weeks i think a lot of you  saw the video about Rgh paints i want to thank   rolf from Rgh paints such an amazing person  we had an amazing visit in Albany, new york   that's a wonderful video for a  lot of you i've had a lot of you   asking me about lead white how to make lead white  listen this is a great lead white that you could   you know purchase ready-made as a matter  of fact he has a a walnut oil with glass uh   lead white that is very similar to something  that Caravaggio would have been using   it's decently priced it's great quality is well  made so for a lot of you that are looking for   you know for lead white that's a great alternative   i myself usually use the historical lead white but  that's a much more expensive much more involved   much more toxic process so i you  know i've had a lot of you sort of   write to me and and tell me Luis i need lead white  where could i find that white and i know a lot of   you are having a hard time finding it so that's a  great source so make sure to check out that video   and also i also have a amazing workshop coming  up about the whole technology of preparation of   grounds we're going to be learning how to prepare  a oil ground with the formulas we're going to   be i'm going to be sharing the whole process the  formulas with you guys what types of oils i use   the drying time that whole thing and also i'm  going to be sharing the preparation of panels   wooden supports how to make the traditional  gesso how to scrape it how to you know sharpen   the knife which is such a pain uh sharpening the  knife to scrape a gesso panel is a science you   know so there's a lot of details that i cannot  possibly share here on the live presentations   that's why i do a lot of my live online classes  i also have a summer workshop remember that   most of these lives presentations are meant to  sort of spotlight the technique of a particular   artist and by no means do we learn how to paint  here or any any of the that is mostly designed   to talk about the mechanics of technique for a  lot of you that are looking for instruction and   critique my classes that are hosted on atelier  san juan meet once a week we have a small group   that meets every Saturday we develop different  projects and i do the critiques online   i'm getting ready to launch a promotion for  my summer intensive program that will begin   in June this is a great opportunity for a lot  of you to you know get a nice chunk of classes   i believe that we have a very reasonable price  so check it out i'll log on to atelier71.org   and check out the listing of classes that we  have available so there's a lot of information   and a lot of you please i'm going to make a  plea here for a lot of you i get questions   that have already been answered on a lot of my  videos so there's a whole library of videos and   is sit back enjoy all the videos  about the different aspects of oil   how to prepare the oils how to make the grounds  you know um the different techniques of the   different artists so take you know give  yourself the time to check out the library   it's a very extensive library i'm very proud  of all the work that has been going on and   you know it's it's important for you to have  context every single life that i do here is   meant to give you context from something that  i've covered or something that i will be covering   and if you just talk about mediums without  the context of how these mediums are being   employed you're really really at a loss you know  because there's those mediums have a purpose   so really important and by the way i want to  thank everyone we've reached 10 000 subscribers   i started with 13 subscribers on this  channel two years ago and a lot of you have   stayed stuck around have stuck around uh have  supported the channel have shared the channel on   instagram uh by the way if you have not logged  on to my instagram check out my instagram page   uh luis Borrero art also my ateliers and one  uh instagram page a lot of you that speak so a lot of information there's videos in  facebook there's videos here i have my Udemy   servers with classes so there's a you know a lot  of information for you guys to enjoy again i want   to thank everyone for supporting my channel 10  000 of you are subscribed subscribe to my channel   i never thought we would even reach a hundred  these are very old-fashioned techniques uh a lot   of you know outdated uh information so i thought  but there's a lot of interest and a lot of artists   are genuinely interested in their materials and  that's you know that's just a wonderful thing   to see for me as an artist as a creator here on  youtube that a lot of you are paying attention to   the content that are enjoying the content and  that are supporting the channel so again i   want to thank you for your wonderful support i'm  going to say goodbye for now so until next time   when we will come back with more techniques  about Caravaggio's process have a good one you