My Painting Process: Stage Two

As you can see from this picture I have started the next stage of layering the oils.

You can see two layers of paint here on either half of my subjects face. The child on the left has one half of her head with the next layer from stage one, or mid-layer of colours blocked in (the right half and top of her hair) and the other side has a more detailed top-layer added in (the left and ponytail).

The 'mid-layer' (left and ponytail) brings out the shades that stand out the most in the face on the picture, i.e. the flush of the child's cheeks and the dark shades in her eyebrow/ponytail. These layers are added in before the detailed layer to make them show through in the painting just as strongly as they do in the photograph. An easy way of noticing which colours show through strongest is to squint as you view your subject - the stronger tones and colours will be clearly visible whilst you do this and other weaker notes will shrink into the background.

In the next couple of days I will post another blog illustrating the more detailed side of the painting and featuring a picture of a more advanced stage.