Lady in Red

It was a dramatic day of change for the Queen painting in the studio today as I added Red Ochre to the dress. I left the grey version of the dress alone to dry for a couple of days to make sure that the glaze would do no damage to the grisaille layer, then today I pounced the Red Ochre over the grey with a brand new, clean, soft rag to make it even and thin, so that the darker greys of the grisaille deepen the colour of the new layer, creating the shadows in the folds of the cloth.

While I was waiting for the dress to get completely dry I worked on the face, building a grey version that will take the velatura layer properly. I’m not entirely satisfied with it yet, but because the face is pretty small it’s hard to get everything just so in one go, and I didn’t want to risk messing up the good bits, so I’ll let this layer dry thoroughly then continue with it on Monday, correcting errors and finding highlights and shadows more effectively. The beauty of oil paint is that it can be added to in layers so nicely, allowing for correction and reworking.

Finally, I worked on the marble floor, first blending lozenge shaped Cobalt Blue veins into a layer of Foundation White with one of my smallest fan brushes, letting it dry then adding a very thin glaze of Iron Oxide Red into the cracks of the marble to stain the joins. Next a 00 Silver striping brush was used to make very thin lines of the Iron Oxide to show where the cracks are at their deepest. Tomorrow I’ll repaint areas within the lozenges with Ceramic White, then add a glaze of white with a touch of yellow in it along the wall to imitate reflected light from the wainscot.