Moving Some Pieces Forward

I started this morning with some extremely tedious details, using tiny brushes. Then that morphed into a couple of larger things, and now I need a break. But first— two that I worked on yesterday:

A Farm At Dusk, © 2019, work in progress (click on image for larger view)

The farm painting still doesn't have the mood of the original scene. I added some warm tones to the right side, closer to where the sunset is, but some of them are not working. And I'm worried about the heaviness of the clouds, though maybe that will sort itself out when I put in the rest of the cloud detail in the upper left.

On to Craig: I worked on the skin tones on the arms, a bit on the face, and some of the foundation color on his tool bag. The tool bag is really the only thing left to finish. 

Craig, America Series, © 2019, work in progress (click on image for larger view)

Then, this morning's work. On Daniel the waiter, I spent about an hour working and reworking the facial features, trying to get everything right: the drawing, the planes of the face, the lighting, the skin color, and mainly, the eyes.

Waiting At Le Diplomate, Detail, © 2019, work in progress (click on image for larger view)

Not perfect, but a move in the right direction. At least he looks human now. Since his entire head is only about an inch high, I'm having to use very small brushes and strokes. It's really hard to get a likeness in such a small space.

Next:

L'Auberge Provencale, February, © 2019, work in progress (click on image for larger view)

Trees— well, drawing convincing trees— have always been a problem for me, ever since art school back in the day. I'm trying really hard to observe how the branches twist themselves to gain access to sunlight. The strokes taper, too, from very thin at the outer edges to thicker where the branches meet the bigger limbs and trunks. So that makes for very slow, careful work.

I also got the placement of the French flag wrong in the initial drawing; had to paint most of it out for now and will put it in its correct place once the paint dries. It was both too small and was obscuring the white ball of the sun in the sky, just at the corner of the porch.

The last thing I've done today (so far) is the pool painting:

Coming Of Age In The Year 2018, © 2018, work in progress (click on image for larger view)

That hot pink you see in the lower half of the image is the reflection of the hot pink sweater I'm wearing today.