Taking It Up a Notch

I spent over an hour today on the wall background of Three Women at the MFA; after getting everything blended just the way I wanted, I decided to go over the visible strokes to smooth them out. Bits of dust that had accumulated in the brush hairs instantly appeared all over the place. Had to spend another 20 minutes picking them out, one by one,and then trying to find a way to salvage the mess I'd made of the surface while cleaning them up. It's not hard to get discouraged when working at this stage of the game.

Three Women at the MFA, © 2015

At least you can see that the background's coming together. It gets more refined every time I work on it. Maybe 4-5 more sessions will do it? Need to clean up the edges of the women's clothes, paint in the purses, make the hair look real, and modify the bright light spots on the art work.

So after a bit of a sulk, I decided to work on Fashion Forward. It's time for me to take the work to a higher level. When I look at pieces I did a couple of years ago, I can instantly see things that I'd do differently if I were painting them now. As far as FF is concerned, the jacket's been bothering me for a long time, and I knew if I concentrated on the drawing of it, I could do a better job. So here's today's work on the jacket--- I had to stop after a while due to fatigue.

 Fashion Forward, © 2015

Though I used quite a lot of Prussian Green, the jacket's looking browner now, but that's okay because the bright green always seemed out of place.