heads & tails - color saturation glazes

So I am running out of time! This painting needs to be in Georgetown (DC) on Wednesday. That means dry, framed, and labeled. But no worries -- after today, I probably only need to touch it one more time.

Today I focused on brining out the colors. So I glazed the background greenery with Sap Green and Prussian Blue, with a bit of Lemon Yellow for highlights. I glazed the area between the trees and the goddess with Lemon Yellow to make it look like she in lying in a well-lit clearing on the water. That will help make the bright highlights on her body make sense. I glazed the shadowed areas of her body with burnt umber. I touched up the rock with Prussian Blue and a purple made from Alizarin Crimson/Prussian Blue. Using the fat-over-lean principle I added more dark "highlights" to her hair (it is interesting how she still looks blond, but now most of her hair color is in the dark range -- the blond look is from the original Yellow Ochre that shows through as highlights). I also worked a bit more on her reflection, trying to get it to parallel her actual self more closely.

Notice how much more vibrant the color is after today's glaze. If I had more time, I would glaze her body several more times to make it "pop" out of the canvas. After the November show, I will continue to glaze her -- that is one of the great things about oils: more paint can always be added.



Total time today: 3 hours.