I decided to underpaint the new Claire Luce portrait today.
I'm less used the painting on smooth panels these days. There are pros and cons to each surface. The pro of a smooth panel is that it's easier to smooth shading, to polish the pure paint to 'perfection', but the paint can slide about. You need to apply more paint, about one hog-hair thick (yes, for me this a lot). This gives you enough to blend and move the paint into it's final place. Painting works in two stages; apply the paint, right colour in the right place, then blend, feather and smooth it to slightly move it into an even more correct place! After that, more, very delicate amounts can be applied.
The colours are muted. The face shines the yellow of the toned layer, and the shadows look grey-violet rather than alive and warm. This is painted from a monochrome photo. I rather like that, it gives more options to colours, but of course can't be 'realistic' whatever that means. I can't realistically paint a long-dead woman from a black and white photo, unless I paint a black and white copy of the photo.
