A piece of me, #17, the egg tempera underpainting over the india ink underdrawing.

A Piece of Me #17, mixed technique on panel. 21 x 13.3 cm or 5 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.

This panel was pure painter’s delight. Took me about an hour to do. My challenge: how to make a field of dark green with some slight shadowed undulations interesting

So I mixed up five shades from the deepest shadows to the highest highlights and set to work. And though I did use some lead white for the tints, I was also careful to make use of the white of the gesso substrate, too. This was done by using a fan shaped dry brush to brush the pigmented paint into its neighbor. When the manipulation was vigorous enough the dry brush tended to reveal the substrate – which made the whole panel more luminous. Finding light in the shadows. And relative to the composition, I was careful to introduce whatever hard lines it offered as a counterpoint to the amorphous fields of green. This is the result.

The whole is already more three dimensional than its underpainting. I’ll take it.Full description of the whole project here. Write up on the mixed technique here.