The Virgin complete

The Virgin is complete, and varnished (retouch varnish at this stage). The edges are gesso'd black, though I am toying the the idea of trying gold leaf around the gallery wrap over the black.

She'll go to the Swan House gallery tomorrow. Today I drew the bracelet, then redrew it when the best composition didn't quite click.

Make it work

After looking at my works with a critical eye, I decided to hit it hard and finish the Virgin painting and the fish knocker on the green door.
The Virgin needed stars on her gown, a little work on the darkest values, and some subtle candle flame work. The fish needs several more layers, unless I want to suddenly switch to impressionism, but I plunged in all the same. I could be done by Monday, if I persist.
Learning that two parties are taking in place in the gallery over the next two days was very motivating. I used a medium that is supposed to accelerate drying. I'll see how effective it is and
take jpgs of the paintings in the morning. In a perfect world they will be dry, I'll be able to use spray varnish, and I'll drop them off before lunch.
More likely the Virgin - still wet- will go up anyway and I'll come back by with varnish next week, when I bring the finally dry and completed fish. Meanwhile they will have the two paintings I listed yesterday - Othello and the Lion.
It's a familiar pressure, meeting a deadline, and it really works for me.

The Virgin

This virgin is from a photograph I took of a painted wooden statue in a niche across from the Brancacci chapel in the Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. I love it because she is wearing a crown and holding a purse - no halo, no baby. The crown is metal and obviously an add-on, the purse is even odder - made of cloth and ribbons.

I started thinking back on Madonna portraits - the goldfinch, the rose, the holy spirit in the form of a white dove. What would be really interesting instead of the purse would be a dimly visible white bird in a cage. In Renaissance paintings she is always bowing before the angel and the dove. What if she caught the bird instead? Or used a caged bird, like a magician's trick, to awe the crowd?

I finally figured out how to mix a particularly intense sleeve shadow, did a world of scumbling (what did I do for fun before I discovered scumbling?) and it all sharpened and deepened.
I'm going to try a sketch of the cage, keep it all very shadowy & see if it will work. It might not. And I'm going to let the current layer paint dry for at least a week before I do anything to the canvas, so I can lift it off with turp if I have to.