Portraits II: #4

She's wearing a vest made of purple fur--zowee!

Still trying hard to pay attention. I think it's helping. A lot. I felt like the underlying sketch drew itself, it seemed so clear where I should put the next lines. The model had a certain way of sitting and presenting herself and I felt like I got lucky with representing that inner part. The likeness is pretty good too--I mean, for me.

(I'm really excited when it looks like the person. I do understand that this is the bare minimum base-level expectation most people have for portraits, but it still seems like an unexpected miracle when it happens for me.)

I'm happier with the drawing component of this portrait than with the painterly aspects. There's not a lot of volume. But then I also like flatness of the paint in the arms.... There's just a lot more I wanted to do in the face. I got distracted by the background. The chroma was too high. I'd painted it pure cadmium red, which resembles red-orange nail polish. Love the color but it made the background jump in front of the central figure. I toned it down with an entire mini-tube of magenta on top. I was really happy at the time with how closely the red background ended up matching the real-life red backdrop, but now I wish I'd divided those 3 hours over the rest of the painting.