Playing with the Bar

I worked some more on the newest painting today. I was really enjoying the floral fabric on this one and focused most of my time on that. The whole painting still needs a lot of work since the face is just the underpainting and the hand still looks manly, but I was playing with how to block out the eyes with the bar. Since you can't see much of her eyes, it's hard to figure out the angle and size of the dark bar. I usually will paint a dark strip on paper and cut it out so that I can play with sizes and angles without having to actually paint the bar on the eyes. Here are both versions:

Version one has no bar on the eyes and looks quite nice, actually, well, except for the manly hand. Just for the record, her hand looks rather manly in the photograph. I may need to take some artistic license and make them less manly. 

Version two has the black bar taped on. I don't know that I have the angle and size right on this yet and will keep playing with it. It's hard to decide how long and wide it needs to be for the angle of her face since you can't see much of it. Sometimes the bar needs to be curved, too. I am kind of liking this without the bar, but, as we know how I am with making sure my paintings are part of a cohesive series, I will be painting the bar soon.