The underpainting is complete. I made good speed with this but had a few worries and concerns which engaged me in sadness, so to solve the problem I listed each concern with solutions.
The main thing I was unhappy with was a slightly "furry" surface, which resulted from slightly sanding the wood before starting. That was because I had to switch to using the back of the panel at the last moment. I could have chosen a new piece, but I'd had enough of preparation and wanted to get started. As such, the surface had an unusual quality, like delicate felt. This was better than a hard knobbly surface (which I've also encountered). It's not too serious, and something I now know how to avoid in future.
Secondly I was unhappy with my brushes. I get through them so quickly. Here I dropped one into a puddle of paint when practically new, right on the ferrule where the bristles go in! I knew that would kill the point, and it did. Even so, I can easily get through two new brushes per painting, perhaps one per day, yet I try to use the worn out ones, scraping and mopping with their ragged curled ends, often to the detriment of the painting quality. One solution here is to buy and set aside new brushes for each major work. It would be rather expensive though.
Some good things happened too, mainly that I managed to make good speed on the painting without losing quality. I'm reasonably happy with this painting so far (a fragment is shown, I'll refrain from showing the whole picture until it's finished).
I'd like to repaint it, as usual, and if I did it would be better because of the lessons learned, but this time I think I'll add a second layer in semi-opaque paint to ease it towards greatness. Some of the values are wrong compared to the study (this has happened before, I must pay attention to global values). Some of the gilded areas have problems too, and the picture is crying out for red, however amongst the cacophony of problems and imperfections there is some good.
