Adaptation of “Mische” Process to Digital Rendering

GOAL: To discover the way in which replicating the layered effect of mische-technique physical-media paintings would impact the final effect of a simple digital image. Obviously, the goal of this technique in physical media is to play with the transparency, pigments, and the refraction of light in a way that a digital image cannot. So the question at hand was not so much “can this be replicated” as “what effect would a similar working method have.” I went into the project with no firm expectations as to the result.

IMAGE: The image chosen was a paid commission that I very near-ly turned down because I don’t usually do vampires. However, I decided to instead take this opportunity to experiment with method and see if I could in-troduce something unique into an otherwise over-visited idea. It is worth not-ing here though that the extreme modelling of the figure is intentional rather than being a byproduct of the method -- it’s referencing silent film history and makeup (re: Nosferatu).

CONCLUSION: One of my critiques of the general practice of digital painting is that it often lacks the translucency of traditional paintings and that colors seem too smoothly blocked in, without an organic variation in hue. This method appeared to combat that tendency, creating a variety in color and a greater sense of light. I was also happy with the way in which an optical-gray was hinted at in the background colors.

The experiment is presented here side-by-side with descriptions from Madeline Von Foerster (http://www.madelinevonfoerster.com/tech-nique.html) and Brigid Marlin (http://www.brigidmarlin.com/Pages/Mische.html) of the mische technique as they apply it.

At this stage in the traditional process, the artist has made a pen and ink sketch and applies a solid red imprimatura over it. (Sample below)

On my digital version, I did a grayscale sketch. That stage of the process won’t be discussed in detail here, but involved both photomanipulation and actively creating sections “from scratch” with a Wacom tablet.

I had to play around a bit to mimic the translucency of oil paints. Just dropping a semi-opaque layer of red doesn’t work, and the red can’t be set to blend as “color”, since this leaves the whites white and turns the half-tones pink. I wanted instead a fully saturated red, with blacks over it.

In the end, I created a grayscale background layer with 100% opacity, dropped in a layer of solid red at 88% opacity, and then duplicated the grayscale layer over the red layer at 92% opacity with the “overlay” blending setting. This allowed the reds to be very true and saturated at the highlights, but made sure that the blacks stayed very dark.

RED GROUND

BRING IN THE HIGHLIGHTS“The underpainting: all forms are rendered using egg tempera. At this stage, form is independant from color: for instance, in the underpainting a white cloth will look the same as a black one.” (FOERSTER)I started a new layer with the blending mode “screen” and opacity 100%, and with a tablet I sketched in the highlights set to low opacity, allowing for soft, translucent whites.

(I had also attempted this with opaque whites that would more closely mimic egg tempera, but they didn’t give the final product as much softness and glow as I’d hoped for, because they entirely obliterate what’s underneath them in a way that real paint doesn’t.)

I then made a second layer also set to “screen” 100% and added in the brightest lights with a full opacity brush.

YELLOW GLAZEFoester recommends an ochre glaze, and Marlin recommends lemon or cadmium yellow. Either will reduce the contrast. I used a very saturated yellowish orange (#eca712) at 60% opacity with normal blending. I left it more transparent on parts of the face and certain shadows, to make sure those stayed more red in the final version. Later on I would copy part of this layer and place it back over the final layer to preserve the color quality, since it’s not quite as concentrated as it might have been. Note that the contrast and definition is also lost here.

Marlin (above) uses a much brighter yellow than Foerster (right).

HIGHLIGHTS AGAINAdd the highlights again with opaque egg tempera/mische. I put minimal opaque white highlights in, focusing on making his anatomy more angular and bringing out the dramatic shadows on his eyes and cheekbones to match the silent-film era look that was important to the concept (see final page for reference photo).

After this point in the process, Foerster would switch over to using colored glazes to establish color value and would not have any more layers of flat color applied globally. Marlin, however, continues to apply global colors, which has a cooling effect that I felt was necessary for this piece.

Marlin (above) uses a much brighter yellow than Foerster (right).

BLUE GLAZEMarlin suggests choosing a suitable blue depending on mood, mixed with titanium white, and applied as a global glaze.As can be seen from the photo below, with physical media this blue-white almost entirely obliterates the under layers. and I attempted to keep this effect by trying to make the blue quite opaque. However, I thought this was overpowering and took away a lot of the subtleties of the piece.

As a compromise, I created two layers of blue: the first, textured layer was put down over both the figure and the background (at 53% opacity), and the second layer (at 63% opacity) covered mostly the background, allowing the figure to emerge as a warmer value.

It’s important to note at this stage that these color layers are NOT solid “paint bucket” layers. Unlike oil paints, which are sufficiently translucent that the under-colors show through a solid layer, a digital layer will entirely overlay the colors under it. So I put most of the “glazes” on with texture brushes, so that the under colors showed through the gaps.

ADD IN HIGHLIGHTS“The completed egg tempera over the blue. ... shows the famous ‘optical greys’ spoken of by the Masters of the Renaissance.” (Marlin)

Unlike traditional mische, at this stage I not only added in the expected highlights (on their own layer) but also darkened in the shadows on the wall and the boy’s chest and face. I applied these shadows as a black “multiply” layer so that they would darken the colors underneath without taking away from their variety or hue. As before, the white is a screen layer.

As can be clearly seen here, I’ve avoided putting blue places where I was particularly happy with the gold-red color mix, as on the shadows around the boy’s eyes, mouth, neck and forehead. This served as a compromise between Marlin’s and Foerster’s methods (re: Foerster doesn’t add the blue layer), allowing me to keep the hot, fleshy tones established by the previous layers while still cooling the whole picture and creating optical grays.

GLAZE FOR COLORAt this stage, the underpainting is completed by adding additional glazes for color establishment.Somewhat by design, the colors I wanted for this piece were actually largely established in the earlier layers of gold and red. So at this stage I took a merged layer of the gold and red glazing layers, and put that back over the blue as a semi-transparent layer, erasing away any sections I wanted to stay blue-gray. I created a new layer to add some color additions here and there. On a different painting the color differences might have been more extreme, but I am concerned that on a digital work that would quickly loose any value added by the mock-mische method.

BEGIN FINAL RENDERINGOil paint is used either as glazes or whole paint (depending on desired opacity) to render the details and add more masterful brushwork. Tempera is still employed to add detail and corrections, as needed.I had been working with a lot of grain and texture, so at this stage I went through and sampled colors from the work to make semi-opaque brush work (with the tablet) over the layers and to smooth out areas that had gotten too grainy. I used lines and color to adjust expression and mood. This part was the closest to “normal” digital painting, but the goal was to make sure the colors underneath still showed through and impacted the final version.

FINISHED PRODUCT“...final glazes to establish the right emphasis....” (Marlin)I felt the previous stage had gone too far into a digital smoothness that I didn’t want, so I popped back in some final textures, grain and grit, and also added an overall darknening to fit the aesthetic. At this stage I was more interested in making sure it fit my original concept.

As mentioned above, the over-modelling on the face is based closely on makeup and lighting choices in the German Expressionist movement. (See the film still from Metropolis below.) The commission was to create a vampire image that would serve as commentary on cultural issues of sexual orientation, so I wanted to play with the way in which the original vampire images (e.g., the Nosferatu silent film in pre-WWII Germany) had created fear of an Other victimizing innocents, and the simultaneous attraction and revulsion of that idea.

While in part using Mische-technique was valuable as an experiment for the sake of experiment, it was also a fun historical game, in light of the way that the film movement I was drawing from is roughly contemporary with Ernst Fuchs’ youth. (Fuchs revived mische-technique as a medium for visionary painters.)