finishing up "the girl in the window": a la rembrandt

"the girl in the window" a la rembrandt

i finished up the copy of rembrandt's famous "the girl in the window" last night. i basically put in the shadows on her hands with combinations of cadmium red light, raw sienna, and cerulean blue. same was  true for the arms. i tried to put in the cast shadows from the arms right after the shadows on the arms was painted to make sure they were tied together. the background being so dark still is throwing me a little as i rarely (if ever) have done this. i used combinations of dark values of ivory black, ultramarine blue deep, mineral violet, burnt umber, and alizarin crimson permanent mixed on the page. i sort of dry-brushed and scraped in the texture extending down on the right (our left) side of the figure using paint applied to a small palette knife. i painted in the small shelf that she is leaning on with a gray mixture of cobalt blue and burnt sienna and then added some darker edges of ivory black for some definition. at this point i had been dithering around for at least 20 minutes making more of a mess than adding anything of any worth so i quit. here is the end result which i will also post on wet canvas.

titus von rijn photo for next project

now that i am in the swing of things rembrandt i will tackle a portrait he did of his son titus von rijn as a young man using the photo presented here as source material. again with the dark background and the light and shade definition  (chiaroscuro) typical of rembrandt.