What Not to Do in First Painting

-- use small brushes and blend...
This week I worked on the eye, the forehead and the crown. I was criticized for doing too much blending on the forehead as if I were finishing it. This is something that has to be done anyway in the second painting stage so it's considered a waste of time during first painting. Juan also said my paint layers appear too thin (another danger of blending)... and so he recommended this preferred method:
1. Paint with a larger brush (1/4 inch?) and use differents of it, not just the flat side.
2. Use quick strokes and lay down square panes or blocks of colour without blending into previous squares (although this will be inevitable when painting wet on wet).
If done correctly, the painting looks blended and finished from a distance but choppy when viewed up close...
3. Then in second painting, work up close, blending with smaller brushes for detailed work.

Eye Eye

I worked Monday night on the brow and did a quick pass at the eye. Man, this guy is starting to look mean... Dave and Marco at the school gave some good advice worth writing down and committing to memory: all edges inside the shadows should be kept soft; if necessary, add some French Ultramarine to blue the darkest shadows but Ivory Black and Burnt Umber should be enough to make them purple; work out from the eye, which is the anchor; concentrate on value first, colour second; any colour changes must be made and finalized before second painting, which is really about blending; and stand a long way back to see colour patterns and their relationships.

Now on to First Painting

The picture's becoming a bit clearer now. In this photo, the camera has obscured the range of values in the actual statue.... I finished big form modelling in the lights and am now turning my attention to the shadow shapes, trying to warm them up (and make them less green) and to define the range of values in them. The eye, for example, still needs to be defined.

Working on the skin colour and the cloth...

I think my camera is lying (or is it my laptop) vis-a-vis colours. I worked hard this week on the flesh colour under the neck (left side) and also on a patch of the cloth below the base... In this picture, they don't look they way I see them in nature here.... Still some adjustments to do on the tones and the modelling, but I'll be an optimist and say every session is setting up the next stage of the painting, especially as I get into more and more of the smaller spaces and details...