New Year’s Eve: Step 7

The glaze technique worked like a charm for the fireworks and the city lights. I coated the entire window area with a very thin layer of linseed oil mixed with a little burnt umber and ivory black. Both pigments are relatively transparent and serve mainly to lend their quick-drying properties to the glaze. The bright colors of the fireworks and lights were mixed with titanium white, which is quite opaque and powerful pigments such as cadmium red and cerulean blue easily overpower weaker pigments like the burnt umber. The glaze allowed me to blend the colors easily onto the surface of the under-painting, and control the effect of the light and smoke. I was so pleased with the result that I decided to try a similar technique to paint the detail in the hair of both figures.
Again, this image is a bit over-exposed, and there is a lot of extra light being reflected by the wet glaze.

