The Sweet Smell of Signed and Sealed Satisfaction (Sort Of)

Or retouch varnish . . .

Nothing like leaving it to the last minute, but today's public holiday, Picnic Day (dontya just love the NT) was Varnish Day, or alternatively, 'Will you just put the brush down and accept it's done' Day.  So varnished Boy in Cap and Betty and now just have to hope they're dryish by tomorrow morning, when I need to take them to Araluen.

Between the multitude of 'this is the last bit' moments on these two I actually got quite involved in a bunch of others.  Did a bit more to the other Betty, and on the roll that was the three day weekend also did a major revamp of Mona's portrait to fix the profile line that I was never happier with.

 This then entailed repainting the whole thing as lots of things ended up skewed as a result.  Much happier with her now, and looking foward to doing more on her now I'm less distracted by Cap Boy and Betty.

Also did a bit more on the Schmidt commission, which I can now give a bit more attention to. I was reading somewhere about a challenge of painting a portrait in only two colours plus white which intrigued me.  The colours were a kind of red ochre and ultramarine blue.  I'd seen, years ago, an amazing portrait painted with only mars violet and payes grey  (and white) and couldn't get my head around how the guy did it.  This most recent article showed the palette and the work in progress (yes you can get a kind of warm yellowy tone out of the mix) and has got me challenged.  I've always just 'done' colour, without really thinking about mixing and all the theories (beyond a bit about warm and cool, and complementary/contrasts on the colour wheel), but I really want to give it a go.  So I had a  bit of one with this first colour layer on the portraits.  As you can see, I've managed lots of browns and purples, but nothing warm (the yellow is the underpainting of raw sienna).  Maybe I'll try on something smaller . . .

 And between all that I got the trusty boards out and played around with some little sketchy things.  Tried doing the first sketch with charcoal, then a spray of workable fixative, then with the turps and burnt umber mix.  I enjoyed it, but am not sure exactly how well it worked.  I think the top one's got potential, but the bottom one doesnt quite work.  All fun though.