Project #4 Progress Post

Completed during the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas crunch time and snow in between, Project #4 became one of my most rushed. After completing a slightly more involved underpainting than I normally do, it dawned on my how little time I actually had to actually apply color and detail.

I started with the face, going against Tommy Van Auken's caution of going for "dessert first," but I anticipated it being the most important part and wanted to give myself as much time as possible. Since the reference was Caitlyn, whom I sit with every day, I ended up turning to my tried and true method of painting upside down in order to take away my eyes' bias while I worked. Even though the likeness still wasn't quite there, it didn't necessarily have to be—it being Caitlyn wasn't the point of the piece—and I quickly moved on to the rest of the piece. Playing with tenebrism in the hair and chair of the piece was definitely my favorite part, and I became a lot looser with the background and sweater. While it's still not my favorite piece (and still needs some work), it's interesting how much my style seemed to change while working this way—a change, looking at it now, maybe not for the worse.

roughly the halfway point

first face layer + underpainting

final piece