Day 28 - Firebrand

"Firebrand" (pastel, 12x12 inches)

Day 28 of my 31-in-31 of January 2020!

This was an old, old painting that was started years ago and never finished. I just didn't like it and I thought it was the high-noon light source.

But doing a 31-in-31 tends to clear out the excuses and when making the choice between starting a new painting from scratch or seeing what can be done with some old thing that was already underpainted, I'll pick the one that already had a head start!

Without overthinking too much, I grabbed this off the shelf saying "Let me just finish this one finally!" I did a quick critique and saw that it wasn't the light source so much, but my underpainting had not caught my values correctly. The shadows on the white fur were way too light.

old, incomplete painting, circa 2015

Especially apparent after wiping off the old pastel...

So, a quick decision had me eager to make my primary value for this composition a darker mid-tone rather than leave all that light value competing with the dark dark fur.

So, I went at it with more primers:

There also seemed to be something a bit sad and malnourished about her in the first painting, so I filled out her face a bit more.

So a lesson to all you working artists, don't stress the failures, just learn to stop when you know it's not going well, and put it aside for a while (a few years maybe?) until you can look at it with fresh eyes and finish it when your skill level has improved.