moving on with the troubadour

in amongst the coming and goings of exhibitions, trips to madison to pick up an automobile to replace our 10-year old vw gti, getting things ready for the state WRAP exhibition, i was able to get a little painting in on the troubadour  painting.

after 20 minutes more

another 20 minutes (some was just thinking)

the main things that i did was give his skin some warming up. he is really quite ruddy and obviously had spent quite a bit of time in the sun and i had left him rather wan at last sitting. this was quite easily effected by an over-all wash of vermillion. i painted in some of the wrinkles and folds on his shirt trying to keep them consistent in value with the light side of things except where they turned into shadow. cerulean blue, alizarin crimson permanent, and raw sienna were the colors and a #18 escoda versatil sintetico was the brush. some of the shadow on his face needed some darkening and cooling off. the darkening was done using vermillion/raw sienna/and a touch of cerulean blue. the cooling was done by a dilute wash of ultramarine blue. in areas that are in deep shadow, such as under his chin/neck and far right side (as we look at him) i used a bit of hooker's green to get a darker sort of value/hue and create a cooler turning edge.

adding warmth to his face

i started out thinking the background would be more blueish but ended up trying out a more variegated green to emulate the trees behind him in the real setting. so, after a bit of messing around with the manganese blue and reddish stuff at the top that is seen in the earlier steps, i started adding ultramarine blue with somewhat subtle vertical streaks of quinacridone gold put in wet-in-wet. i think this is going to work but it will need some value fortification as we move along. it also is a bit "sweet" for my taste and i will have to tone down the saturation a little as i move along. the hand on the guitar neck is coming along well and i am going to lose the inferior edge into the background.

at the end of work today...with background

the guitar neck has been percolating around the back of my mind ever since i started this painting. the question was whether i should render it in some detail of sort of smudge it in. have looked at a number of paintings of guitarists where things were done both ways, i decided to be a little more accurate and careful. sigh........tedious but a better choice at this time, i think.