Deliberation: Step 3
Thursday, December 18th, 2008In order to work as efficiently as possible, taking into consideration that all of the flesh tones would have to be painted in two passes with the first pass completely dry before beginning the second, and that it is almost always simpler to paint those areas that are furthest back in the picture plane first, I elected to paint the under-painting for the right arm next, and then paint the shirt while I waited for that to dry.
The under-painting for the arm was a simple enough project, but its size combined with my relative inexperience with the technique meant that it took most of a full work day to finish. The good news is I learned a lot about controlling the transparency of the paint, and keeping the surface smooth in the process, and later areas of under-painting went much faster.

Over the next few days, I worked on the shirt. Moving in a general right to left direction (I’m left handed… this way I’m less likely to set my hand down into freshly applied paint) I painted sections of the shirt, trying to finish each day along a large wrinkle or break-line so that the next day’s work would join up seamlessly.

Here is a better shot of the finished shirt:






