Demonstrating and Explaining
the Premier Coup Technique

Step 18: Restate Darks

Restate
(Steps 18 through 21)

Now you begin the serious work of restating everything you have done. You have just come from a rest period, so stand back and study your painting with a fresh eye. Then proceed to retrace your steps, going back over everything — in the same order of the original painting — and restating. Start with the darks. Restate the darks, making your judgements sharper and more accurate. Then restate the halftones: some darker, some lighter, some perhaps more intense, some less so, etc. All along the way refine and correct the drawing.

Hover to zoom final painting

The shadow tones provide the strength of the painting. Here you restate the shadow tones, noting that many of the tones that seemed so very dark when originally placed now need to be stated even darker to achieve the depth that is required. Why the restating step? Once most of your mosaic of tones are in place, you will experience renewed and refreshed powers of judgement. You can now make better critical judgements — how dark is this tone compared to the tones next to it, and so forth. Very often your first tonal statements were entirely separate judgements. Now, with the multiplicity of tones in place in the painting, it is easier to make critical and accurate judgements.

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