skin tones

Today all I painted was skin.

The legs need to be darker below the knees, but the hands are close to done. I love the blues and teals of the veins.
Once this dries really, really well, I can start pulling the edges of black fur out where it drapes over the body. Also add the gold wedding band, thumb ring, and the saints medal on the gold necklace.

Progress on Clothe the Naked and Feed the Hungry

I added the chair, and worked on the dog's face.  His face is a black blob in the source photo I took, so I found another one with the same profile position and am working from that.

Here's a detail-


I plugged in the base of Hungry too. It's a piece of quarter-sawn oak that's the top of the dresser. It's also seen in Thirsty. I'll be adding more detail in the way of wood grain, but want to keep it simple and the focus on the dogs.


Had a kick ass painting day. I've cleaned my brushes, put the paint away, and now I'm going to go scrounge up some dinner.

Black dog

Blocked in the base fur color and placed the highlights. Left the edges vague so I can go back in with precision after another layer on the skin. Once I get the chair placed, I'll go back for round two.


Got Bury the Dead properly drawn to my satisfaction, then did a Paynes Gray and white mix with a teeny dab of Sap green and applied it to the background of Feed the Hungry. I left a loop white for the halo. Last time I counted, I'd squeezed in ten puppies for this saintly dog to nurse. She was actually nursing eight and she barely weighed twelve pounds herself.

Tomorrow I'll bounce to painting the black dog in Thirsty. In theory, same colors so it should move along fairly quickly.

I found the kind of Georgia red clay in clumps and clods I wanted for Bury on a building site. I took some photos and will try the shapes out in a sketch. I'm still uncertain about the overall background color. Maybe a variation of the green lawn so ubiquitous in cemeteries.  It could emphasize the rawness of the clay. But maybe a lighter value of the orange-red clay will work best. I'm going to keep my options open for now.

Clothe the Naked

I roughed in the body for Clothe the Naked this morning. It's been a while since I painted skin, but it wasn't as difficult as I anticipate. I've been looking at a lot of Titian (especially Susannah and the Elders) and Rubens to get ready. The skin looks violet now, but that's against the unpainted white canvas. The chair is dark mahogany, and the dog is mostly black, with a few tan accents and lots of blue highlights in the fur, so I'm expecting rich contrast.



I'm working from background to foreground so the central element will be painted last. The canvas is going to go into the drying box now, because there's a lot of white paint in the mix. It will be a while before I can paint another layer.