the awkward phase....

i pooled in some color.

at this point ,the piece is down right ugly.

this is a hard spot in the development; to go from a photo-quality image ( more or less) to a painted image because the edges become blurred and the shadowed areas are too dark; the subtleties of skin tone are lost.

i have placed in cool colors, but i want the piece to be warm overall. so that is my next phase; to bring it up a notch in warmth.

it is hard for most people to carry on from this point,---they usually believe they have ruined the piece because the photo is kinda lost.

i tell my students to remember, this is going to look like a painting when done, not a tinted photo, try not to freak out. it is the essential part of the process.

(and besides, if worse comes to worse, one can always glue another copy of the same photo on top and begin again.) but we won't do that here.