Fiddling Around with Nero

Last weekend I decided to try the Wetcanvas.com Portrait forum Challenge for July and August.  I shouldn't have.  The challenge turned out to be to paint from a sculptured bust with several to select from.  Foolishly I bypassed several lovely young ladies to take on ....yep....Nero.  That's where my troubles began.  Mistake #1

Day 1 the pencil drawing using a grid

The first day I printed out the subject using standard printing paper rather than photo paper.  Mistake #2.  The picture printed out dull and without the rich look of the original bust.  I didn't care since I convinced myself the print was only for the purpose of copying the head onto canvas and that the painting would be done from a computer monitor or iPad.  Using a grid system, I transferred the 8 x 10 photo to the 9 x 12 canvas.  I had a new panel from RayMar I wanted to try...triple primed, very smooth cotton canvas.  Nice stuff made for portraits. Wow it's easy to draw on too.  I rarely use pencil, preferring to draw directly with the brush but I wanted to proceed carefully so I drew it out. 
In an hour or so on the first day I had it blocked in.  I was OK with the progress. 

Day 1  the block in started. 

The second day I worked another hour or so to begin to refine the image a bit.  I find the block in stage to be the part of the process I like the best.  It always seems to go downhill from there. I was using synthetic sable for most of the block it.  For several years, I've used bristle entirely, but I'm beginning to move away from that. 

 

Day 2 Refining the image a bit

             

                        

On the third day, I worked on getting a likeness while at the same time trying to paint a "statue" and not a real face.  I want this to look like a sculptured bust. In particular I wanted to correct the chin which I had much to far to the left.  At the end of this session, I was pleased with the general progress and the likeness.  I should have quit right there, but of course - Mistake # 3 - I didn't.  In looking at the painting, and more specifically, at the photos of the painting, I could see several issues.  The primary one wasn't a drawing problem -although there were a few of those at least -instead, I didn't like the color.  Somehow I had drifted into a very greenish cast to the shadow, no doubt a result of using unbleached titanium as a primary base color and adding ivory black for shading.  The mixture results in a green, which I should remember for landscapes, but which is unpleasant in a portrait.  (It looks better here than it did in life.)  Anyway, I decided I wanted to 'repaint' the bust to get closer to the richer base color and to get to a cooler, bluer gray in the shadows.  Not to mention that by now my new Isabey mongoose brushes had arrived and I was dying to try them out for the first time.   A perfect excuse to Fiddle with Nero some more.

Need I say it?  Tune in for the next post in which I manage to take four giant steps backward without saying "Mother May I?"