A few days ago I put the first of the opaque highlight layers on the painting, and was instantly disappointed. Far from the "glow" I was hoping to build, the painting went completely flat and chalky, no doubt due to the titanium white.
It's not that the painting looks bad per se, it just doesn't have the depth and translucence I'm trying to capture. It's quite possible that some of that depth will show up when the painting is varnished, but clearly I won't know until then!
Of course, the question is: is it the paints or the painter? The only reasonable way to establish that, I decided, was to paint the same painting using real oil paints, and so that's what I've started on. This painting is using the traditional flake (lead) white (Old Holland) but for the rest I'm using the budget Daler-Rowney "Georgian" oils as I have all the right colours (or in some cases, hues).
It has taken a few days to get to this stage, and I've had to photograph it rather than scan it (can't lay a wet oil painting on the scanner) and then photoshop it quite heavily to get it to look like the painting actually does, so this is more an indication than an accurate record. For the same reason I won't post as many progress pictures of this one. Yes, the background colour is quite different to the other painting - in real life it's not that vibrant, but since what matters here is the figure, I haven't gone mad trying to correct it. Also, as you can see, I've painted the whole original pose this time - again, the point is to explore the painting technique Incidentally, if you'd like to see the reference photograph, it comes courtesy of http://chamberstock.deviantart.com - look in her "nudes" gallery. I'm very grateful her to and all the other DA'ers who make these reference photos available to us for use :)
My plan is to get the oil painting to the same stage as the Genesis painting currently is, which will probably take a week or so (accounting for drying time). Once I can compare them side-by-side, I'll know which end of the paintbrush the problem is on ;)
I still have half a hope of getting one of these paintings into our local art show (entries close July 6th). It's cutting it close, but not impossible. I'd like to put something in, so I'm also considering painting something else using Genesis that I know I can complete in time. A landscape, maybe. We'll see :)
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