Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Portrait of Zoe : stage 6 underpainting

Today's version of the painting is more contrasty than yesterday's. This is because I've prepared the underpainting for the final stages of glazings. If one puts a layer of transparent color onto a surface, one always darkens and reduces the contrast of that part of the painting. Today I added bright highlights to the parts of the red jacket I want to pop out more after I glaze again. I also blocked in the hair with highlights that are lighter in value than her real hair is. This will give me some latitude so I can glaze the hair area more than once to find the best color combination that works. I'm trying to deal with the hair as a sculptural mass that has form and waves. Later after I have glazed the hair and knocked down the values, I can add more highlights or shadows and even individual hairs if I need to.

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