Early Frost finished

I finished this one today and will finish framing it tomorrow. This one was a quick and easy one for me. By keeping it looser I was able to do it in about 6 hours total. Deciding what I am going to start next but it will have to be later in the week as I work nightshift the next two days.

Early Frost step 4

I did a little more on this one today. It is hard for me to leave it with so few details but I wanted to try a looser style for it. Only the two left hand tomatoes need finishing and then to go over the whole thing adjusting and tweaking.

Early Frost step 3

I am finding that the heavy use of water is really slowing things down. I am working from right to left going darker with values and starting to pick out some of the details in the leaves.

Early Frost step 2

I had a chance to work some more on this this afternoon. I have to wait to go farther because everything is too wet to work on. Having fun just dropping in colour and letting it do it's thing. Forgot to mention in my first post that this is 11" x 27" - not small.

Early Frost step 1

I am doing a loose washy painting of green tomatoes picked early from my garden last fall because of a frost. It is just to get me painting again before starting more detailed paintings that I have planned (three figures and a painting for a themed show that I haven't decided what I am doing yet). I just needed to do this as sort of a palette cleanser (pun intended). LOL. I hope to get it done fairly quickly but again I have to work this weekend. This is just the first two hours where I have started on some shadows to work out layout and then the first washes on the two right hand tomatoes.

Lianne finished

I have finally finished this painting! I was going to add more detail to the hair but realized that I wanted the focus to be the eyes and adding detail in other places would draw attention to it. So the hair is more loosely painted. I also am cropping a few inches off the bottom to better balance the portrait. Less is more and things shouldn't be added just because they are in the reference image. An artist needs to ask themselves if inclusion helps or lessens the overall look they were trying for.

I will add the drawing stage of the next painting as soon as I have it started after I work this weekend.

finally back to painting

It has been a long holiday season for me but things are finally back to normal (or as close as I get). LOL Today marked a big step... I finally got back to my painting. I have many more ideas for other paintings so I need to get this one finished. It's been on my easel (between other paintings) for over a year.
This is step 9. Today I corrected features, added a pinkish wash all over the skin tones, and a darker brown wash over all the background and the hair. I need to go in and work on the hair a lot more adding tones and hightlights. The face is mainly done.
The main reason for painting this portrait with the lighting I chose, was to give it the look of an old master's oil paintings. I don't need it to be photo realistic in the hair so it will go faster now.