Laying in Some Color

Starting to lay in some hair and skin tones. One of the very best secrets I've found in portraiture is the use of caput mort for shadows. That color is so perfect that it saves mountains of time mixing shadows. This stage is where the portrait looks LEAST like the original. Everything is too flat because, at this point, everything is very thin. My main concern, other than tone, is to fill in the white of the canvas with the first coat of color. So, the paint is very thin and just kind of washed in.

Portraits take anywhere from 3-5 coats of color in the facial area just to get them to look "alive."  As with any painting in oil, the first layers must be the thinest or you risk the painting not lasting through time. Thicker paint on the bottom layer will continue to dry, shrink, and crack the upper layers.

I've also decided to use a bit of blue in the black background. Stark black just isn't right here, even with the surrounding white around the figure.