Embroidering the Truth
30" x 36", oil on canvas, 2013, private collection
Tight pencils before Distillery addition
–note the dangling hair.
Developmental stages:
Blocking in shadows with olive green.
Hair and bricks and brown clouds.
I used brown acrylic to block in the clouds so that the eventual lighter oil colours would have more depth and be a little more interesting.
Using an orange ground creates difficulty for me when gauging colours because of the bright afterimage weirdness when my eyes go from area to area while painting, and also while stepping back, the adjacent orange makes it hard to tell if the painted colours look right.
Hair and bricks and skin and browner clouds.
I added a second coating of brown to the clouds for a richer darkness. The skin is starting to come together here, but I had to wait until it was completely dry before adding white highlights.
All painted with that #4 brush.
That's right: I used this one tiny little brush (not to scale, of course) for this entire painting. I started my next painting, My Advantage Point* (also featuring Ashley), with this brush, but found it was nearing the end of its usefulness for detailed work, so I've moved on to a new #4 for the rest of it. I do keep all my old brushes, so, although it's retired from detail work, it can still be used for various effects, textures, etc.
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