Second painting phase continues...

The strategy from the start has been to work from the eye shadow outwards. At this point, the forehead, cheek and nose are finished, so I've been concentrating on the beard and the top of the head. (See second photo below -- red circles mark the spots). The edges that are soft or that I have blended with the background tend push the forms back in space. The edges left hard and with a greater contrats between light and shadow tend to jump the forms forward. When standing back 7 feet, I now experience a visual special effect where parts of the beard appear in sharp focus and much closer than the eye... This doesn't come through in the photos, which tend to flatten the image.

Full view:



Close up: