My attempt - Liberace Workshop

Here is one of my attempts at painting a la Velasquez. I would love to redo the nose, my least favorite part of the painting. I completed this study rather quickly, in about three hours (I must be wrong about that because the class was longer although I did goof around for an hour at the end). I liked the loose effect. It is different than the way I normally paint. I left it very sketchy on purpose given that I almost can never do this. If I worked on it longer it would have gotten too tight with not enough time to render the entire painting.

I wish I had taken a picture of the "finished" piece at the workshop, because my hot lights at home are terrible for getting accurate color or value. Despite the new camera from my husband, I still suck at photography.

Can you see that I originally started the face and then wiped it out and flipped the canvas. Sometimes you have to know when to start over. Thank god I knew when in this case--but it was very obvious to me. The first attempt was way off and there was no real way to salvage it. In the end it was a good decision. I really liked the final drawing and, in fact, didn't want to apply paint.

I started with a much darker core light and shadow than I have in the past and I liked it. It gave me a much larger variance in values to play with. I think I will do that again. I should have underpainted the nose in a "hot" color then painted cool over it, as Burt Silverman does. It always works to make the nose look realistic and pop off the canvas. But, I didn't do it here. Big mistake. The nose looks waxy. Drawing looks slightly off. Now do I have the stomach to mess it? Probably not.