Verdaccio

No, verdaccio is not an Italian lettuce although there is a connection to green. Verdaccio is a technique using a greenish underpainting once used by the Old Masters as it was thought that it made the painting more luminous. I've seen some contemporary painters use it using a mix of Ivory Black and Yellow Ochre plus white. As Ivory Black is a blue black, adding yellow ochre gives a muted green.

I decided that I would try it but instead use Old Holland Green Umber which is a cool earthy green. Maybe it will be too cool for flesh tones and it is a very desaturated green but we'll see how this experiment goes. I'm trying it on a small scale with this head and shoulders with the underpainting of the turban painted with burnt umber.