First day of painting "Time Independent Portrait Of Rene Descartes Suddenly Realising That Every Thought Stems From A Prior Thought Or Memory Experience". I came up with the idea perhaps as early as 2009, and started work on it in at least as early as 2011, with a clay model, but the sheer complexity of the work made me pause this until last year. A new underdrawing was drawn out (the blog probably records that!) and a tone and colour study made, and today the first day of underpainting.
A long and tiring day. My thoughts were full of Vermeer. I remain certain that three layers; imprimatura, one opaque, one transparent is optimal for any painting. Some deep jewel-like hues can only be done with many repeat layers of the same transparent pigment, and violets are hard to achieve as there are no opaque ones (see the violet iris? It's actually mars-violet and grey, an iron oxide red, the exact colour (and pigment!) of dried blood. It looks violet due to the yellows and greens around it).
