Last Alla Prima Painting...For Now

Yesterday was my last day of class for a little while. I am finding it hard to attend classes with all of the painting I am doing outside of class. While I love the time to do something different from my current series, but it's hard to find that time. I am hoping that I can still take some time during the week and practice alla prima portrait painting on my own. If any of you want to volunteer to model for me for about three hours, there will be a nice home-cooked meal waiting for you when we're done. You may even end up with a painting, if I like the results!

Here's what I painted last night...I am pretty happy with it. It looks a thousand times better than the last woman I did. The skin tone is still off, but getting better. I just need more practice.

This painting of Tori makes her look a bit older than she actually is.
She had a mass of curly hair and a very detailed earing on.

Here are my steps:

All of the things I learned about drawing in Sadie Valeri's class
 (looking at angles, making "connections" with parts of the face,
etc.) have come in handy here. My drawings are more accurate
and I draw quicker since there are less corrections. 

I am still not the best in getting those super darks in. They look fine here,
but if you notice in the next photos, they become muted again. I'm not
used to starting with the darks. I usually add those in once the paint is dry
in my regular work. You can't do that in alla prima.

For those of you wondering about my studio...It's still in the process of being built. Ben got the basic structure of the painting racks done. He just needs to add in the bottom slats and then attach the second level. It's much harder to build a studio when you have a full-time job also. Hopefully by this weekend they will get done.

This is the botton half of the racks. They will hold paintings up to 42" in length.

This flat surface is the bottom of the second level of the rack which
will hold pieces that are 26" in length.