Sisters: Step 8
Finishing the hair is always a favorite step for me because I never really feel like the faces are finished until then. With this painting, the effect was even more pronounced since I gave the figures such pale skin, and their hair is dark. I find the contrast quite striking, and I think it adds to the overall effect of the painting. In particular, I think it will really draw attention to the faces and facial expressions of the figures. I have made an attempt with the past few paintings to avoid over-doing the detail in non-essential areas. The hair is one of those areas where it is easy to get caught up trying to paint each strand. The extra detail really doesn’t add to the effect of the painting, and if not handled with extreme delicacy can actually make hair appear greasy. Also there is the consideration of achieving a uniform feel to the entire painting, and often very finely painted detail in the hair of a figure seems out of place with the facial features. This is a particularly important consideration on this scale, where the faces are large enough that a very high level of detail in the face would mean either painting things like pores, or over-smoothing, which gives a plastic-like feel to the skin. It isn’t easy to see what I mean in these images anyway; the camera tends to exaggerate certain brush-strokes and leave out others. As I look at the effect in the original, however, I think the detail level is just right.
