Days 5-6

I'm not counting the passing days, but rather my full working days- at least 3 productive hours = one day.  A few days have gone by where I've made minor tweaks or simply walked away after an hour or two.  Sometimes you got it and sometimes you don't.  I've learned that when I "don't", to do something else.... because I start painting over things....

The above photo is where I left things today.  This one in particular looks the most accurate in terms of color (at the moment). From here on in, the majority of changes are most likely going to appear subtle in the photos.  The dark area in the top right is wet paint from me beginning to lay in more opaque paint (Ivory Black, Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson) to make a dense dark.  I want to create visual push and pull.  This is how the much of the darks in the top region of the image will look. Some areas need to be pushed way back and some areas need to be pulled out.

I have repainted the face and neck twice in three days.  I don't like to do that because it creates a lot of paint layered on top of each other.   It is best to scrape it off if you don't like it, that way you get the underpainting (the Raw Sienna wash in this case) popping through all over and creating visual harmony.  If there is too much paint down, you can loose this effect.  - It is a conscious decision to allow it to come through.  This is the golden color you can see in the arm and lower abdomen- I used very translucent cool colors that were carefully placed next to it. You can see a bit more in the pic below.


Game plan:  A friend of mine gave me a nice complement and a good idea.  I think I was already leaning this way, but now I'm going to be a bit more deliberate.  He said he really likes the juxtaposition of the highly finished passages and the untouched or loosely painted areas. So I'm going to be leaving parts unfinished, and I'm going to keep my drips - I like the effect anyway.

What I'm doing now is working with Titanium white and Raw Sienna (plus a touch of Manganese) and giving some volume to the unfinished areas, pulling out a few bits here and there and hitting a few highlights.  I really like working with this kind of limited palette and focusing on form. A true underpainting would have all of the volumes rendered. Below is a pic from where I left off on Day 5....