I just took a class at Gage Academy of Art called Portrait Painting in the Renaissance Tradition, optional subtitle of How to Paint Portraits the Extremely Tedious Way, with a million layers of charcoal drawing, underpainting, "dead colour" layers, glazes, etc. etc. It looks better if you, um, do it right (viz van Eyck, Leonardo, Raphael, Rembrandt, etc.), but here for the edification of the masses is the evolution of my painting:
charcoal underdrawing
monochromatic underpainting
"dead colour" layer (red oxide/yellow ochre/white/black)
after ten thousand layers (approximately) of glaze
ironically I don't have a picture of the finished thing on its own, but here is everyone's all lined up together:
and here is a green monochromatic underpainting of a model we just had for one afternoon:
