Below are a couple shots of a 'side painting': my self-portrait in progress. The first is my initial lay-in of colors and some structure. The second I worked more on the face and values. Next I'll solidify what I'm doing with the background before I go back into the face some more. Portraits are always difficult but a self-portrait especially so as I've found I don't keep as still as I like! This makes it hard to capture the bone structure.
Something I've been exploring more lately is working with desaturated colors and limiting saturation to the focal point. This is difficult with acrylics but also because I love color and now feel like I'm painting with 'mud' everywhere. I hope this will end up making my paintings more sophisticated.
Oh look! Here are my brushes. I can never get them quite as clean as new.
