THE BEST LAYED PLANS...

Well, I learned a lot...enjoyed my painting time...and produced a painting that is pretty darn ugly! I did follow my plan. I chose the "film noir" value plan and came pretty close! I am pleased about that. I made the painting black and white in photoshop to compare my results with my sketch. I am working with the high key palette in Nina Leland's color book to see what I could do with those colors. This is a dark as I could get with many layers of color. I decided to have a warm dark on the face and a cool dark for the background. Really don't like the warm dark very much. The second image shows the painting pretty much done. I thought the colors needed to relate more, so I put a quin gold glaze over it as a unifying force. That color wasn't in the palette. Almost all of the colors in this palette are semi opaque and granulating. They are beautiful by themselves but don't lend very much to layering or glazing. The palette that I normally use has little or no semi opaque. I like very transparent and strong colors that can create rich darks. I was trying to get the feel of a poured painting without actually masking off and pouring. The last image is the final result. Keep in mind that this isn't exactly how it actually looks but close enough to get the idea.

I am going to try again using a value pattern with just a little dark, mostly light and some mid value shapes. Also, I am going to keep from neutralizing the color too much. You can read about color until the cows come home but the only way to truly learn is by doing.

I had to wait until each layer dried before I could continue, so I started reading an interesting book. I spent the afternoon painting then reading, then painting, .... The book is called "Iconoclast" by Dr. Gregory Berns. A neuroscientist reveals how to think differently. Turns out innovator's brains fire differently and one can learn how to do this. There is so much interesting research on how the brain works. I may figure mine out yet!