I've been doing a workshop this month in Florence that aimed to teach the procedure that Caravaggio used in his work.
Something along the lines: Underpainting in burnt umber, then an underpainting in white, then filling in the dark of the background (black with a medium of oil, turps and varnish), and then painting the values of the flesh, and then the fabric of the pants. Some fabrics may be painted as glaze, such as bright red textiles. However these ochre colored pants are not a glaze but solid paint.
I did not not finish the painting and did not work on the white shirt much other than as a white underpainting. Had I worked on it more, I would have put in the different white/gray values of the shirt on top of the white underpainting.
Many questions were left unanswered. But I think that the face, hands and feet in a painting is suited for wamer values such as burnt and red umbers, while the body is better suited for cold values mixed with raw umber. The palette I used consisted of Roman ochre, Vermillion red, red umber, burned umber, raw umber, black, and titanium white.
This is as far as I got in 10 days.
