Oil Painting, Old Masters Method

A workshop by Sergei Chudanov DETAILED STEP-BY-STEP DESCRIPTION: This is a private workshop I took at Glazunov Art Academy in April 2019. Sergei and I were painting simultaneously two master copies of Pope Clement X by Giovanni Battista Gaulli, circa 1670-1671. I was shooting Sergei’s master copy on days 1, 2 and 3, but on the day 3 he did not have time to finish his layer, so on the 4th day I am shooting him painting on my master copy instead, you can notice the difference. Normally, it takes a week for the layer of oil glazes to dry, but Sergei and I were mixing some cobalt dryer into the paint, and our layers were dry in 2-3 days. DAY 1. On the first day we were painting on a canvas previously primed by several layers of gesso, sanded, and painted with raw umber on top. We transferred the drawing using regular charcoal, sprayed fixative over it. Afterwards we lightly painted the shadows with a mix of black and ocher. The most interesti