This second study is an 12” x 16” under painting in oil. I am trying to explore how to leverage the shape information that I captured in my print design, while using the vocabulary of paint in a way that adds something valuable in its own right.

I was inspired by Gary’s demo of broken color and by my own experiments with impasto and warm/cool relations. My plan for the oil study is to go much darker, using cool broken colors for the background, and warm unbroken colors for the shadow part of the head. I will probably indicate the ear, eye, sternocleidomastoid, and hairline with diffuse darker marks. I’m thinking the portions of the head in the light will turn form, but use pretty heavy, almost impasto paint and I plan to make the background dark on the left to contrast with the rim light, gradually lighten towards the right to pick up more of the skull and hair in silhouette.