Basics of oil painting: Preparatory drawing on canvas

The internet is full of articles and videos about tracing the drawing on canvas. I think I can add nothing more to them. The theme I'm going to explore is not so popular.

When I was starting to learn how to paint my teacher taught me how to do the drawing on canvas - do the lines with the small brush and a washy mix of paint and oil (at that moment I was using pure vegetable oil as a thinner - but it's a theme for a future article). It was my first way to do the drawing, but since then my routine changed a lot.

Karl Bryullov - Sleeping Juno (1840th)

Why I wasn't satisfied with a paint-and-brush method? There are pros and cons about everything, but what I didn't like most of all was the feeling of surprise when the works is almost done - you may discover that everything is crooked or in a wrong scale, because the drawing was bad and you didn't notice that before.

Pros of doing the under-drawing (may I call it so?) with an oil paint

Pros

- it's quick to do
- if you use a mix of raw umber and turpentine it will dry very fast
- useful for a fast 2 hours lessons, because it gives you the ability not to fixate on the drawing and proceed faster to the painting
- don't need any fixation layer

Cons

- it's hard to erase. It can be washed by turpentine, but it can made the canvas look dirty or even (if your canvas was toned) it can ruin the background paint
- it's hard to do the construction lines, and you are risking to create the wrong proportions or scale

Jan van Eyck - Saint Barbara (1437), brush stroke drawing on chalk ground laid on oak panel

My conclusion is that this technique will be useful for either a master painter or a beginner painter that has a tendency to spend too much time on drawing (that was me). For idealists this variant can be frustrating.
But there are many other ways of doing the under-drawing:

1. Charcoal drawing

Pros

- easy to erase
- looks beautiful

Cons

- may look so beautiful that you will not want to paint over it (serious problem!). The example:

Valentin Serov - Portrait of Princess Polina Scherbakova (1911)
Photo by Puno3000

- easy to make too dark. So after the drawing is done you'll have to remove the excess charcoal
- dust. If you have an allergy on dust any work with charcoal may become a nightmare

- after the drawing is done you'll also need to use a fixative

2. Pencil

Pros

- the most accustomed way to draw
- easy to erase. But if you've toned the canvas and the paint didn't dry completely the eraser can ruin the background color.

Cons

- pencil point can make small cracks on gesso, so you need to be careful with a pressure and use only soft pencils

Ilja Repin - copy of the Holy Family by Raphael
This unfinished study was done in watercolors, but it gives the idea how the preparatory drawings were look like

There are different ways to fixate the charcoal/pencil layer:

Currently I use this fixative by KOH-I-NOOR

1) Use a special fixative

2) If you are going to start the painting from the dark places, you can run over the drawing with an oil paint (roughly, just to find where the darks are)

3) Fixate the drawing with a water-based paint (tempera or ink are often used for that). It's better to use the reddish brown so it will match with warm darks* on the future painting.
Water-based paints do not dissolve in oil or any other common thinner. It gives you the ability to concentrate on colors without worrying about the drawing.

*in the most common case lights on the painting are cool and darks are warm

4) Fix the drawing with oil paint.

Sir Thomas Lawrence - Portrait of William Wilberforce (1828)

Tips

- Tips for figure paintings - if the line of the drawing is slim and fits the skin folds - use warm color. If the drawing is bold and done (or fixed) with a wide brush it's better to use a cold color so it would be close to the halftone.

- Masters make the drawing organically fit in painting instead of painting over it

Alexander Ivanov - detail from the painting The Appearance of Christ before the People (1837-1857)

- If you want to tone the paper don't forget to do this before starting the drawing

- If you are working on a colored surface you may use a chalk or pastel.

- When you are working on a preparatory (preliminary) drawing you need to be able to stop in right time. Otherwise, you may cross the line and the drawing will not fit it's purpose of being supporting and guiding step of the painting. The painting may become a coloring book, because you won't see the shapes behind all of the details.