a study in values: "serenading miss rachel"

i'm not sure i will get to any painting today so i thought i would check on the values of the painting. when i looked at it this morning while drinking my first cup of coffee, it just looked off. i wasn't worried about it, this early on i the process, but i wanted a handle on what the problem was before moving on. since most problems lie in the values being incorrect i decided to take a better look at them.

how to do this? i think a good way to do this, and one a lot of artists are resorting to, is to simply take a photo of the painting and change it to a black and white copy in whatever photo editor they have available. when it do this with the current photo a couple of things pop out that i didn't expect. to be absolutely transparent, i thought that the large shadow that falls across three articles of clothing on the "right" (his right) side of the figure would be several disparate values (and there in would lie the problem).

i was surprised to find that i had actually gotten these pretty close and the lapel part of his jacket was the thing that was too light. therefore i concluded that the shadow was pretty cohesive and i could make it more so with some unifying glazes that would also bring it up the correct overall value. additionally, i will need to darken the lapel and his right sleeve. then i think, hope, that it will take care of the nagging  issues that i felt this morning.