If you want or need to judge the tones in your picture or the scene you wish to paint, you can use a Claude Glass. A claude glass is a black coated mirror that dulls the colours of anything being viewed, leaving you with the tonal relationships within the image.
It’s a useful way of ensuring that your picture has good tonal balance, vital for any painting to work properly.
It is though, quite easy for an artist to make their own claude glass. All you need is a plain sheet of glass that is coated on one side with some gloss black paint. This will create, what is in effect, a rudimentary mirror, but it’ll only reflect the tone of the picture. A similar job will be done by putting a piece of smoked glass in front of a standard mirror.
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Remember, pet portraits are for life, not just for Christmas!
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