The Dancers WIP

Still working away on the dancers and wanted to stop as I want to be really fresh on the tutu of the dancer closest to the viewer.  I don't want to over work it.  I am really doing a lot of redrawing with the brush on this and am feeling more confident on doing that.  I am also going to do another several coats of thalo green/ultramarine blue over the black to deepen the color and pull all the darks together, I am finding that the black I over painted on the thalo in the center tends to be lighter than the black over the  white - go figure. 
I have spent a lot of time on the skin tones of the dancer closest to us.  In the picture it reads very dark black, and even the hair versus the neck shadow just reads of black, of course we know that in real life we could see color variances.  So, I think there are going to have to be some additional blue/dark gray glazes there to enrich her tones.  Tricky, as I need to still be sure the light reads there as she is indeed the lightest portion of the picture. 
Also I see here that I need to lighten the girl standing right in front of her, making her a blonde so the slight bit of her hair gets definition from the closest dancer's darker hair. 
Also trying to decide if the right arm is too thin, I might need to beef it up so that it reads more similar to the left arm - anyone have thoughts?  Paint and fix, that is my world on this one.
Thanks much for stopping by and hope you are having a great week.

Comments

Mellowood Gallery said…
looking so good! I agree that the right arm looks too thin and I am puzzled by the brown on either side of her neck - she looks like she is wearing a bolster. I noticed a blue spot in the top left corner. I kept drawing my eye and I wondered if it is really there or just a trick of the light.
August 25, 2015 at 2:19 AM
hmuxo said…
Looks amazing so far! You're doing everything right! Excellent skin tones!
August 26, 2015 at 1:48 PM
Rita Vaselli said…
Dear Nelvia your work on tonal painting became truly extraordinary ... a technique that consumes time to put into practice but that gives real masterpieces to you, that you paint, and to me that watch with admiration. I know how much work behind this way of painting ... I'm going through very difficult times for the health of Danilo, but I decided that painting write and keep in touch with the world of friends in blogland as facebook (even with less time) is something that makes me feel good.
Habits are like a way of saying to ourselves that it is only a moment of the storm, but after everything will be calm
August 28, 2015 at 3:25 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bold woman's portrait

Image
Bold Ok, for today's portrait I went out of the box and decided to try a different look and approach. This is on watercolor paper, I applied a layer of paper collate over it (you can see that some of it started lifting - so got to use more medium to glue it next time)  Anyway then I tried to leave part of that under collage showing, even in the face.  Went back in and applied several more light lawyers of transparent and opaque paint and then put in the hair using my dagger bus.   Gosh that brush makes hair so much easier While this might not the best example what are your thoughts to taking portraits this more dynamic direction? Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.
Read more

Her Highness mixed media woman portrait

Image
Her Highness   I just absolutely loved the expression on this lady and knew I wanted to try to capture her elegance and serenity.  I knew that I didn't want an exact portrait and decided to try another mixed media piece.    I added blobs of paint and used my large scraper to make the areas of color.  Just put paint on a piece of watercolor paper.  Then I inscribed and mixed the colors together with the end of my brush and got all the wavy lines (in real life they actually stand up so there is a 3D effect to the background).  Where I thought I wanted the face I really scraped most of the paint off, and ended up with color blotches and tones, and if you look in the forehead you can sort of see the design that was left.  I thought it would add some variance to the skin tones. I also want to keep her very soft so I tried to stay in the pastel tones, even with the lips.   Once I got shadows and lights added in, and went over it with some skin tone and more blue colors I let
Read more

In The Garden acrylic painting Redo

Image
In The Garden Original painting Well, thankfully I have some folks who tell me what they think.  I value their objective opinions very much and appreciate that they feel strongly enough to tell me when they feel something is off.  In the original painting no one liked the addition of the yellow flower, and felt it pulled the eye and overshadowed the focal point.   Well, I sat on it a bit and starting playing with how I could work it back into the composition.  I wanted the third flower, but I couldn't just really dull down the yellow.  As you an see I ended up making it darker in shadows and then burying it into the foliage.  I like it better because it now looks, to me, like it is part of the picture instead of just being put on in the corner.  Moral of the story, fix it first because it is hard to come in and match colors later. What do you think of the changes - for better or worse? Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.
Read more