Paint, Scrape, Paint

12" x 9" Oil on Panel

You could say I made two paintings at the portrait session last Wednesday. Or maybe two paintings in one, neither of them finished.

These sessions are for practice, pushing your abilities, and sometimes trying new methods. Rarely do I ever "finish" a painting at these sessions. Generally, when the timer goes off at the end of the session, I'm through with my sketch.

Some sessions seem to go better for me than others. Last Wednesday my sketch didn't begin well, but I continued on, trying to force the painting to be better. Halfway through the session, I had to admit to myself that the sketch wasn't working and couldn't be corrected. So, out came the palette knife. The paint was scraped off of the panel, leaving a faint image on the panel. Over that, new paint was applied, with better attention to drawing. Now I had only half a session to work in - an hour and a half, minus breaks. The image above shows how the second half of the session went for me. Better, I think.

Colors used were cadmium yellow light, yellow ochre, cadmium red, quinacridone red, ivory black, and of course, titanium white.

For more about portrait sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "portrait", "sketching" or "drawing".