I’m struggling to find time to paint while getting the house straight and prepare for summer school starting again tomorrow morning (I’m teaching beginning drawing and beginning painting), but I got to spend a bit of time on the studio this morning, and now I’m finally  in again this evening, after various problems, not least that I’m getting a summer cold and starting to feel crummy. Meh! (Wah wah wah…) Hot lemon and honey for me, then an early night.
It’s clear that this layer will be amended as I build toward the finished arrangement of skulls, what I’m doing is building a very general first look at the areas of light and shadow, breaking them down into quite simple pieces of the whole, using fingers and rag to lift white paint away from the black undercoat. Usually painters will use this technique – imaginatively known as “wipe-out” – to bring light areas up, but in this case I’m pulling shadows from the white by revealing more or less of the black undercoat.
Oh my, what a lot of good work you have ahead of you to make these smiling skulls come to life, well you know what I mean 🙂 – Soon I hope to come drink a toast to the new digs and help you hang a few ravens.