Blocking In
The blocking in is simply the filling in the base color of each area of a canvas. This may be done as a first layer or may be done as a later layer in a staged painting. Blocking in covers the canvas and provides the artist with a general base value and hue to respond to, as opposed to white areas of a canvas. This can be very important due to the effect of simultaneous contrast's effect on our color and value perception. In the blocking in stage, no to little modeling of form is done and no details are added.
Below are three images showing a work in progress by Lisa Yuskavage. In the first two one can see how she is blocking in the basic colors in each area covering her canvas.
