I have been working on one painting since the beginning of the month, so three weeks now, and I am at that point where I don’t know how to move forward, inspiration is lacking, but I know that there is so much to improve on it. It is a portrait from a photo of myself. It is quite large for me, 24 inches square, and so far the painting has gone really well and I have been excited about how good it looks. Hmm, that could be the problem, I’m getting to the stage where I think it might be good, and so I’m too scared to paint on it in case I mess it up! I know that that mind set doesn’t get you anywhere. I need to push beyond my comfort zone in order to improve.

   It also doesn’t help that I haven’t painted it for a few days. Today is full of pregnancy related appointments and bottling peaches before they go bad. I just have enough time to write this and then scurry off to a midwife appointment. Also, sharing work space with very busy husband completing his final year of an engineering degree, means I don’t get to paint during the weekend. Which is fine with me as there are many other things I got to catch up on. (Lots of baby sewing this last weekend).

   But this week, my main goal is to get this painting finished finally. Last year I bought Ceaser Santos’ instructional video on portrait painting, so while painting each stage of this I have been going through all nineteen hours of watching him paint a portrait and teach. It has been very helpful, I am learning so much, but the learning curve from seeing what he dose to putting it into practice in my own painting is very very steep!

  Here are a few progression photos up to what it looks like now. I’m hoping to get this finished by the end of the week!

Just looking at the painting now in the image on the screen, I’m thinking of what I need to do to improve it. The face is looking too saturated and red without enough contrasting cool colours.  Many of the shapes and values need refining, so I really need to pay attention to the drawing and the value structure as I paint.

Well, time to go, and I’ll let you know how this painting goes. Hopefully I’ll have the finished thing to show you soon!