DAY NINE
There was no Day Eight.
Day Nine begins, as any day should, with glazed apples. It seems so simple yet...
Somehow putting a red glaze over green makes it a richer green rather than a grey. The Highlight was put back in over the glaze while it was still wet.
The remainder of the day is being spent in over painting Salome's left arm to make it sharper and bring it to consistency with the right arm which I am happy with. That right arm did also get a few more tweaks.
Before
After (and still not at all finished. The crook in the hand became less exaggerated, the golden bracelets were adjusted to better describe a round form (and made brighter) and the fingers are being more defined. The wrist may be a touch too wide now but I think that will be solved with some work at the wrist joint rather than the contour. The fingers are tricky as I want them to appear spider-like more than human but I want it to be a subtle wrongness. That pinky, in particular, will be trouble. Must remember fingernails.
Where I was at day's end. There were more colours in the hand (and the daring light green at the bottom of the forearm) but also I decided that details were not the key to defining the hand. Decisiveness was. The greens around that raised forefinger were darkened for drama and a bit of fiddling was done with the Baptist's forehead.
I am now considering a faint Sienna glaze over the head of the Baptist to darken it. My instinct is that it is too bright but the brightness of the whole piece is designed to rub against my instincts for this subject matter.
Final result of the day. Reduced, the bottom of the hand now looks very chubby. hrm...
