By the Fountain: Step 8

All that remains to be painted is the dress. I have described several times, here in the studio, my standard procedure for painting drapery. I typically will paint the mid-tones first and then blend in the darker shadows and the highlights. Well, this has been a fairly experimental painting from a technical standpoint, and the trend continues here. I found that I could achieve a very soft, light, cotton feel to the dress by using thick paint (straight color with no added oil or turpentine) on a small round brush, and putting down final colors in one pass. At first this seemed to be taking considerably longer than my other method, but I got faster as I went, and since this should all but eliminate the need for a second coat of paint, (whites can be somewhat transparent on drying, but this coat is so thick that I seriously doubt that will be an issue here) it may actually prove to be faster overall. I don’t think the same would hold true if this were a larger painting unless I could find a way to achieve the same result on a larger scale with a bigger round brush. In any case, it is working wonderfully here, and I love the results. I wish there were a way to show the surface texture in this image, but the camera just doesn’t pick it up.

