Practice

This is a little further along that the image below, but still a lot to do. Much detail work, including slight color and value changes throughout. Without the gradations, the form would be off. This is the stage of a painting when it helps to have very good quality paint, that is highly pigmented, and a has a loose texture. The changes will need to be scrubbed on thin, but a medium will also need to be added, to insure proper adhesion, and to protect the integrity of subsequent layers, by the addition of increasing amounts of oil, with each sucessive layer.

This is an 11x14 oil painting, for practice. For this one, I am working in layers. Rather than my usual charcoal drawing, which is then fixed with shellac, I used a toned canvas panel, and drew with paint and brush to establish shapes. Then I painted the image. When this is dry, I will change brushes, and focus on details, including values and color.

The paint for this was titanium white, burnt umber, burnt sienna, raw sienna, Venetian red, yellow ocher, ultramarine blue, and cobalt violet. I made the titanium white and Venetian red by hand. The Venetian red pigment came from Sinopia, and the titanium white was from Kremer Pigments.

The mediums for this were cold pressed linseed oil, and a medium composed of stand oil, Canada Balsam, and oil of Spike.