Asher: Step 4
Between beginning this step and completing the last, the entire painting has dried to the touch. At this point I consider the sketching phase to be over and the painting phase in full swing.
Using pretty much the same palate as before for the skin tones, and using the under painting as reference, I paint the face in its final detail. Almost all of the highlights and many of the mid-tones from the previous steps are painted over, as well as a few areas of shadow. The darkest areas at the corners of the mouth, around the eyes and the final outline of the head and hand are added with ivory black and burnt umber. Pure titanium white is used for the brightest highlights on the top of the head.
During the same sitting, I painted a quick base coat of mid-tones for the jacket, and as long as I had the dark paint on my palette, I began blocking in some of the darkest areas surrounding the figure.
Once again, between these two images, most of the new paint has dried to the touch. This really doesn’t take much time at all for the colors that contain burnt umber or yellow ochre…usually overnight. Some of the thicker whites are still wet, but have stiffened significantly, and will no longer blend easily with new paint. If any major work remained on the face, I would allow it to dry further before continuing, but all that needs to be added are a few small highlights of titanium white on the nose, upper lip, ears and fingers. These I can add with the paint in its current state.
The jacket, the blue blanket and the final work on the top half of Ernie all proceeded in basically the same way: first the mid-tones, then the shadows, then the highlights. This painting is small enough that that sort of work goes quickly, especially the since small distortions in color or shape don’t stand out in these areas like they would in the face or hand.
