Second painting underway for the Gaul

The last phase of this painting is now officially underway. After finishing the first painting of the base, I lowered the painting down on the easel to match the level of the statue again (see below).



I'm currently "second painting" the face, with a 2:1 ratio of mineral spirits to linseed oil. The paint on my pallette is thinned with this mixture before being applied to the canvas.

I started with the forehead and went down as far as the brow (I'm leaving the eye untouched until the surrounding areas are done). Some important lessons were relearned:
1. Lay in a couch of middle value first. Look at in on an angle to see where the glaze is reflecting (which tells you where the couch is and isn't).
2. The boarders (where light meet dark) need to be dealt with at this time, otherwise a hard edge will be left.
3. To create a soft edge, there has to be wet paint in the dark area meeting the light area. As you push the wet light paint into the boarder it blends into the dark paint. If the line of the drawing gets lost or distorted, paint out from the dark border into the light area to restore it. The resulting edge should be soft or hazy.

For the forehead, I had to blend into the edge of the background and the top of the brow, both of which had been prepared beforehand. For the nose, there were three edges: the background, the bottom right of the eye shape, and then top of the nostril. The arrows below highlight these spaces.