Frame Two
Well, I decided to erase and repaint the frame today. The results are awful. The photo looks much better than the painting does in real life, but I felt I had to repaint this, partly as penance for my previous haste regarding the frame painting. It's an amazing fact that the frame so far has taken as long to paint as all of the rest of the picture put together, and this is a big picture. The problem was that I drew the underdrawing before planning the shading. The paint itself was rather too thick too, due to the mars black which was practically like putty.
I'll need a sub-layer for this, that is a layer in lean media and opaque colours that smooths and perfects the underpainting. Pictures always look better with a sub-layer, but it is often the sign of failure, for the perfect picture needs a perfect underpainting done in one layer, and such things are quite possible, when the perfect artist pays attention! Remember; to a casual viewer a good oil painting looks "finished" at every stage. To a perfectionist artist every painting looks unfinished.
Tomorrow I must paint two female figures, or one. Either way I have real models but I must make them appear to be marble statues. I've done no tests on doing this but I'm sure that I can manage such a simple colour transfiguration with ease.
And now, more inspirational poetry!
Today might be your last.
Your measure in your past.
Your greatness must be proved today
to make your future vast!
Olé!
PS. That dark patch in the left-middle of the photo above is a flaw in my camera. Alas, all of my photos have it. I think the camera saw "The Omen" and became infatuated.
