And so it begins...

What started as a facebook chat idea, has now become our first montly painting challenge. Jon sent me his photo, I sent mine to him. Here's the master I'm working from and my initial shape lay in. More to come.

Haven't had a lot of time to spend on this, but plunked in a bit of minor forms and simple value shifts using Burnt Umber and Titanium White. Very little medium. I like to do an underpainting like this before going in with color.


Still not a lot of time to spend, but introduced color and started into some smaller forms. Always enhancing the light and staying as thin as possible in the darks. Not sure if there will be a background, I've been enjoying these studies with just the field color as the background.


More color and more detail, getting closer to the finish.

Finish. Finalized by adding a simple background, it works because of Jon's shaved noggin'. I did some final touches to the ear and then finished the eyes and forehead. Last was the hair and background, merging the two together at points to give depth and adjust focus to the face. Now we have to decide what to do next! (BTW - if you click on this photo, the enlarged version is fairly large, so you can see detail a bit better. Likely I'll take some more detailed photos later with a better camera.)