A great day in the studio, fully engaged in good, productive work. I’ve base-coated the sky in  a medium grey as preparation for a layer of Cobalt Blue (yep, I ran out of that, too, must get more paint in stock – that’s one of the problems of working on large paintings).
With the base coat down, the lining of the cracks between the marble slabs corrected and in the right place the painting is really making a lot more sense, being mostly rendered in the correct values of grey to take the glazes that will make it sing, although there are no cherry trees in the composition yet, because these will only be added when the sky is complete and I can paint a new layer of light grays for the leaves and blossom.
I’ve been editing the figures on the left, finding several areas that need attention, where a line is half an inch out of place here, and a shadow a little too high there. The appearance of the girls is gradually improving, making this by far the prettiest painting I’ve worked on to date.
