A steady day of painting, a full day but I feel that I've done little. I started by adding glaze layers to the two Red Madonna paintings. These had an uneven finish, but after 6 weeks, the finish was less evident, only the colour difference. After 4 weeks, some areas had much more gloss, this indicates the importance of taking time with oils.
Today's work was necessarily gentle and slow. Only tiny amounts of paint were needed, so little that the amounts would be the sort of vague fragments wiped from a brush which has just been cleaned - mere particles. Those can still make a huge difference to the surface of a painting. After this, and about two hours of drying, I used a soft flat brush, new and dry with no paint, to massage the fringes of the paint.
I was reminded that no AI and robot could ever paint like Leonardo da Vinci. Even the very simple task of getting the right amount of paint on a brush is a skill which requires extreme dexterity; years of training. I may add more layers to this painting yet. The turquoise background is starting to look flat. I wonder if I should add a transparent later on top.
After that, three colour studies. Two for the 'transubstantiation' painting:
These studies are so useful. The difference here seems small but is huge in real life, there's no substitute for using the actual pigments. The flat grey on the left looks fine, but the brown-yellow, inspired by Hammershøi, added an instant and powerful feeling of reverence, if not awe. Again, this is not evident from the idiotic digital image.
After that, a study for the scarecrow painting. The final colours will be different, as I plan that the glaze will change things. This is an underpainting study, then.
