Painting Styles: The Scumbling Painting Technique For Softening And Adding Depth
Scumbling techniques have been used by master painters since the 1600s to create smooth gradations, modify a previously dried layer of paint and to add a sense of depth. This technique is accomplished by applying thin layers of light opaque colors over dark layers of dried transparent paint. The final results gives a painting a surface that various in how much of the under painting is revealed. An ultra thin layer of an opaque paint can soften an area of a painting while giving it a misty, almost out of focus look that might be typical of background objects. Adding a thicker layer of paint to an area would naturally give that object an appearance of being in the foreground….