Underdrawing

These artists "underdrew" with a brush, using hatching strokes for shading, using water-based black paint, before underpainting and overpainting with oils.

[citation needed] Cennino D'Andrea Cennini (14th century most likely) describes a different type of underdrawing, made with graded tones rather than hatching, for egg tempera.

Underdrawing in many works, for example, the Annunciation (van Eyck, Washington) or the Arnolfini Portrait, reveals that artists made alterations, sometimes radical ones, to their compositions.

The underdrawing can reveal changes, sometimes radical, made by the painter as the painting develops.

For example, one of the five versions of the Madonna by Edvard Munch has underdrawings showing the arms conventionally hanging down, before the final version has one arm behind the subject's head, and the other behind her back.