Julia and Grapes

"Julia" 16"x20" oil on linen on board, "Grapes and Yellow Vase" 11"x14" oil on linen on board.

I worked on getting Julia's portrait in. My goal was to start broadly and then work my way to the smaller forms. I also wanted to pretty much complete the face all of a piece in a single session. I started by painting a velatura over my underpainting, Basically thinned down middle tone flesh color so the shadows would partly show through and give me a map to paint over. I think I'll finish the rest of the figure before I go back to the face. I can see why Sargent wiped out his portraits so often. It's difficult to make it look broadly painted yet specific to the light and the model. Anyways I'll keep playing around with this until I kill it or something clicks.