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                                                                      The Dancers                                                                          16"x20"                      ...

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 ...

Linda Willison from PMP has ballerinas in her family, and has shared several of their pictures both at practice and I think maybe recitals.  This piece caught my eye immediately as I like the mystery of the dark, and the figures that pull you deeper into the background of the picture.  I also wanted to try the challenge of conveying the translucence of the tutus with the light coming through them.  Many figures or partial figures you can see where the light hits and where the figures are in the darkness.  Also it is really interesting how few strokes you need to convey arms, faces, etc. in the background.  I also am lightening the shadow areas so you have dark, but not all black - guess instead of shades of white, it's shades of black for this picture. The thalo green areas I tried using airbrush medium to get the really thin acrylic paint that almost is like a glaze but leaves a different texture on the paper.  I really like how this translucent color a...

Well I think I am getting getting pretty close to being complete on this painting.  Today I have spent a lot of time on the shadow side of the face trying to get it blended together.  Still a bit more work and refinement on the garment, some touch ups on the face I have to remember that it will be darker when the acrylic is fully dry in 2 weeks), more Blue glazes on the back of the turban and then several glazes on the black background.  In the original picture Vermeer actually used a green glaze made of indigo and welt over the grisaille background.  I think I will hold both my digital original and my painting next to each other in the mirror and see if anything jumps out at me - there might still be some slight adjustment in the right hand side of the cheek area, I think it needs to come closer to the nose in spots, but it would be pretty subtle. Time to watch some of the PGA golf tournament.  Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a great weekend...

Well an old master I am not, well maybe I qualify for the old part.  Am finally getting the base coats on the garment and the face tones.  I have been battling it out with her right-hand cheek and mouth areas, the nose, forehead and chin.  Whew, talk about one step forward and ten steps back.   Next project is going to be tried with the oils.    I am struggling as I can't get the skin tones smooth.  The acrylic wants to dry super fast today and I didn't add extender so, I am really going back and forth between the glazes and dead color coats.  Then it streaks, blobs and dries hard color in parts and white shows through in others.  I think I am too anxious and pulling color up that I just put down because the acrylic really isn't dry in the dead color parts.  Then I am ending up,with too much face color and have to overpaint to tone it down.  so I think I am glad it rained and cooled things down so I can try the porch for a bit and c...

Ok, finally getting to,the fun part.  Am still working with getting some refinements in the face.   Thank you to Renate who has spent a lot of time being my second eyes and catching things I was blind to.   She has contributed a lot of time figuring out the tweaks and things that initially read wrong.   But was finally able to start to add some color.  I can't image what it was like to only draw and paint in black and white for,years under the old training methods.  But there is a beauty in just black/white or umber/White.  These guys were so smart, that even with adding the blue I already saw the face take on color from the grisaille under painting, I swear it is like magic.   I am using a couple of techniques here, I think it is called dead color, stumbling and glazing.  By the way even with the acrylic I am using glaze, not just water, to produce glazes.  However, the glazes are highly glossy and very reflective as you can see in...

As you can see I have been steadily working on getting the grisaille completed and just have to put a few more darks into the trailing scarf and then to the mirror to critique.  Looking in the mirror the issues stand out, so I'll need to make any adjustments of lightening up shadows before I can begin to apply glazes.  Guess I will start with the turban to get the feel of glazing before I try the face.  Good thing is I believe I can continue to add white to adjust as I go forward with the glazing.  One of the places I,have been reading says that the old masters would do as many as 60 coats of glazing before the pictures were deemed complete.    I have to say Youtube has been invaluable during this process and also this sis forcing me to learn more on color theory.  If you desire to do color charts check out Thomas Baker or Clive5Art Many thinks to Renate who has stood strong during my meltdowns. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.

Ok, I took a big step back as I really wasn't happy with the direction that I was going yesterday.  I mentioned to my husband that this was really harder than I thought, to copy a master, and his comment was so perfect - "That's why they are masters"!  Yeah.  I decided that I wanted to use burnt umber as the underpainting rather do the grays.  It is warmer and I want to add very light flesh glazes so wanted a warmer under painting.   I want to keep the reds to a minimum as it appears Vermeer used a lot of yellow through this whole painting and think the brunt under will add the reddish tint without actually using a lot of red. So first thing I did was to make a value chart for brunt umber to get an idea and feel for the paint application, also looked up what the complement, blue, is to create the gray tone.   Then I did some more studying and realized that the grisaille has to be much lighter than what you really think it should be as it reall...

Ok, this project will probably be as slow as I am.  I always thought it would be so cool to be a copyist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and get to copy master works from history's most famous artists.  But for many various reasons ranging from the strict approval process to not being sure I could paint through all the ugly parts of painting the "old masters" while people are watching, that isn't possible.  But here is the slow part - I just figured out there are so many digital images of master works available I could paint on my own and learn - Duh!!!  My little box is such a small world. I wish more of my dear friend, Renate would rub off on me.  I should learn her from because she is fearless when it comes to "going for it" when painting.   She doesn't think can't.  She also found a challenge years ago where they painted from master works.  She produced some spectacular paintings while doing those challenges.  At t...

Well here is the feather work that is part of this mask.  I am going to have to figure out how to use complementary colors to neutralize the right-hand side of feathers as that is the darker side.  So need darker, but still color - good trick.   One of this year's goals was to work more from life and I found a neat little way that I think will help me do it.  Wetcanvas, under their Artwork from Life tab, and is also the fourth section once the page comes up, has a scavenger hunt every 9 days or so where they list 25 words and artists have to come up with a drawing from life for that word.  For instance one of the words was "live" so I drew my hummingbirds on their feeder, one word is "hot" so I drew a thermometer.  It is pretty cool to see how people interpret the words in different ways and also post their sketches.  It helps to validate that these are sketches, not finished works of art.  If it ever cools off maybe I will get out there...