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What is scumbling and how can it add greatness to your painting 

Never mind the term sounds a little bit strange, scumble is a great painting techniques to add layers and textures to your painting. 

What is scumble?

Scumble refers to a painting technique in that artist loosely use a thin or transparent layer of paint over a dried layer of paint, resulting in both layers showing through at the same time.

This technique is used by many painters throughout history. Two of the most famous artists who used Scumbling techniques often in their paintings are Monet and Turner. 

You can see many layers of different shades of purple and green in Monet’s famous water lily painting. The result is a mesmerizing effect with the illusion of millions of light spots dancing around the canvas. 

In this Turner’s captivating painting, the scumble techniques helped the artist bring out the dramatic and emotional effect of a tragic event. 

J.M.W.Turner, Slavers, Throwing Overboard The Dead And Dying(1840)

What effect scumble can add to your art?

• To add soft transition of colors without the need to blend with a fan brush.
• To build up layers in a painting, adding depth and interest. 
• To add texture to the painting.
• To build up a sense of atmosphere.
• To create a broken color effect.

How to Scumble?

1: Begin with a dried base layer of paint. You can stumble on not-too-wet surfaces as well, but you need to be careful, use very light gestures, so the paints won’t mix. 

2: Pick up a small amount of paint straight from a tube with a dry brush and apply it loosely to the canvas. You do not want to have too much paint on your brush to cover the paint payer below, and totally defeat the purpose.

3:  You can use various strokes to stumble, like making small circles or scumble in a quick up and down motion. 

4: You can apply more layers to deepen the color or add more layers of different colors. But you must wait until the paint is mostly dried. 

Hope this post is helpful. There is another technique similar to scumble but distinguishly different: sgraffito. Click here to read: https://yingmclane.com/whats-scumbling-and-sgraffito-painting-technique/