Portrait of Serena

Another alla prima portrait study I did tonight - this one was tweeted live with in progress pics via my Twitter. Took a few better resolution photos of the process for the blog too, so here goes:


Here's my palette set up, with my color chart behind it. Trying to limit my palette more, but this time I added a few "extra" colors. I used yellow ochre, burnt sienna, venetian red, Permalba white, mars violet, cadmium red light, and blue black. For a medium I used Winsor & Newton's drying linseed oil, and for thinner Gamblin's Gamsol.


After the initial scrubbing/toning of the canvas and laying in the basic line drawing, I massed in my darkest darks and lightest lights to get the values of the face and flesh tones accurate. I then blocked in the colors I mixed for her face, being sure to circulate colors and keeping my values correct.


After some blending back with a hog bristle brush to lose some of my edges and weave colors together, I added a few highlights and finished out a few details.


A close up of the face.

I'm having a lot of fun doing these fast studies! More to come :)