Good to hear from you in the ‘studio’. The white lines you can see on the canvas are actually the first rough sketch I made when transferring the drawing from the scale-sketch to the canvas. I use white chalk because it shows up well and is relatively easy to change. Once I am satisfied with the basic layout of the white drawing I sketch in the details with red pencil. The red is a bit more permanent, and therefore much more likely to survive to the end of the painting. I use red instead of black because it doesn’t bleed as much into the first coat of paint. Also, if I do have to make a major change to the drawing I can resort to black which will show up over the red.

In this painting, most of the lighting is an ongoing process. With simpler paintings (regular daylight conditions for example) that is not the case. In the value study for this painting there is a lot more light. The sky outside is brighter, and there is actually sunlight illuminating areas of the mill. This lighting was based on some of the reference material I had for the mill interior and would have, most likely, been much easier to paint. The major changes came about for two reasons. First, I decided to play the colors in the sky off of the colors of the molten metal. This meant a sunset which, though more dramatic (and I think more fitting the mood of the painting), would not provide outside light for the mill. To accommodate this change the direction of the light on some of the beams had to be changed, the beams in the windows became silhouetted, and I put a shadow line across the back of the ladle to suggest that the light on that side was coming from an unseen furnace instead of the sun (this change actually happened during the glazing stage). Second, I realized that the effect of the glowing metal would be much more spectacular in a darker painting. All of these changes required a lot of coordination in the contrast levels of the piece. Because each finished section changed the way the previously painted areas appeared, there was a little back-and-forth, darkening here and lightening there (mostly done with the glaze coat) to work out the final light levels. The more got finished, the easier it was to tell what had to change and what had to be done next to get the right look. By the time the background was finished, there was enough information there to paint the figure without further adjustments (so far anyway).

Thanks again for the comments and questions. Keep them coming.