Close Up

Finished

The painting is complete. I am very happy with it. I feel I worked out most of the kinks in pre-construction. I have often stated that every painting should have a point when it is completly broken. This painting was painted acording to plan, it was never broken, and so be it, I am happy with it.

So now agian I am in a tricky spot. The finishing point is in sight. I don't want to leave the painting under worked but I dont want to over work it. I must use caution in these final stages. Now the painting is devided into four parts. The flesh, the clothing, the blnkit and the background. It's important to work on all for an equal amout so that one spot does not look over worked. Often times in portriture it is easy to just work on the face. I don't want to make this mistake.

From now On I have my colors mixed. There will be no more mixing of pigments. For the colors I will only mix in white to create Hue. I will be covering up most of the yellow under paining but that yellow will be a very important influence on color. The yellow will show through the translucent paint medium that I will be applying. These two layers, the under-painting and the translucent layers will combine into one color.

Color Planning

I feel that the painting is where I want it. Now it is time for color planning. I will first make the four colors on the left. Then I will mix these colors to get the colors on the right. The numbers show the percentage of each color I will use in the mixtures

step 4

I mixed three colors into the 50/50/ mixture of Turpentine and Oil I created earlier. I mixed 1/3 cadmium yellow, 1/3 red hue/, and 1/3 zink white. the consistency of these three colors and medium was that of a milkshake.It created a pleasant orange. I added this in places as mid-tone. After I added orange mid tones I proceeded with the add/take away technique.

Step 3

Next the take away method was used. I took away all of the highlights that I wanted to show. This means I took out the brown and was left with the yellow. Then I used the same tone that I took away to add in details. I repeated this, take away, add, and take away over and over until I got to a point where I felt good. I was ready for some color.

Step 2

Next a mixture of 50% linseed oil and 50% turpentine was made. This was added to a mixture of 1/4 Phalo Blue and 3/4 Burt Sienna. The liquid was then applied to the canvas with a one inch brush. The strokes were loose allowing the canvas to show through unevenly.

Step 1

First a canvas was primed with three layers of gesso. A fourth layer was applied thickly in small circles with a beat up brush. This gives the painting a texture so that thicker paint strokes done throughout the painting don't stand out. Next a thick layer of acrylic cadmium Yellow was applied over the whole canvas.