="The Ébouch."=--An _ébouch_ is a painting which, mainly with body color, blocks in broadly and simply the main masses of a composition. Sometimes an _ébouch_ is used as one of the preliminary color studies for a picture, especially if there is some problem of drapery massing to be determined, or other motive purely of color and mass. Or if there is some piece of landscape detail such as a building or what not to come in, _ébouches_ for it will be made to be used in completing the picture. But more commonly the _ébouch_ is the first blocking-in painting of the picture, by means of which the greater masses of color and value are laid onto the canvas, somewhat rudely, but strongly, so as to give a strong, firm impression of the picture, and a solid under-painting on which future work may be done. Whether this _ébouch_ is rough or smooth, just how much of it will be body or solid color and how much transparent, just what degree of finish this painting will have,--these depend on the man who does it. No two men work precisely the same way.
Some men make what is practically a large and very complete sketch. Some paint quite smoothly or frankly, with more or less of an effect of being finished as they go, working from one side of the picture gradually across the whole canvas. Others work a bit here and a bit there, and fill in between as they feel inclined. Another way is to patch in little spots of rather pure color, so that the _ébouch_ looks like a sort of mosaic of paint.
In the matter of color, too, there is great difference of method. Some men lay in the picture with stronger color than they intend the finished picture to have, and gray it and bring it together with after-painting. Others go to the other extreme, and paint grayer and lighter, depending on glazings and full touches of color later on to richen and deepen the color. All the way between these two are modifications of method. The main difference between these extremes is that when stronger color is used in the first painting, the process is to paint with solid color all through; while if glazings are to be much used, the _ébouch_ must be lighter and quieter in color, to allow for the results of after-painting. For you cannot glaze _up_. You always glaze _down_. The glaze being a transparent color, used without white, will naturally make the color under it more brilliant in color, but darker in value, just as it would if you laid a piece of colored glass over it. And this result must be calculated on beforehand.