Portrait Painting Class, Week 3.

Here's the result from my third week of portrait painting class. It was painted in a three hour session from a live model.

I started with a toned canvas and then drew the big shapes in transparent maroon thinned with turpentine. My instructor, Meadow, corrected my initial sketch by raising and narrowing the bottom of the nose. After that, it was all me. I felt like I grew a lot on this painting, and was able to apply a lot of what I learned from last week. I paid special attention to edge. I've been reading Richard Schmid's indispensable book, Alla Prima. When discussing edge technique, he says that he'll place one value/color next to another, and to create a soft edge he'll make a single pass with a soft brush along their intersection. I tried to employ this technique -- turns out that I needed more than one pass and often a bit of perpendicular scumbling -- but I'll get the hang of it. If I painted thicker, one pass should be enough. Still a very long way to go, but making progress. I'm particularly fond of having captured the orange'ish reflected light underneath her jaw. Small victories.