Light Housework
I’m willing to feel pretty good.
I can probably swing a little blue into the mix for shadows though.
I thought it was too dark too. I lifted it.If I was going to be picky, the shadow under the nose seems too dark. Sometimes shadow colors can be made by adding a little bit of dark blue to the color you're darkening. That brown you're using is also on the lips and the hair knot, but it seems like an extra color that's not part of that painting's palette, because it doesn't show up enough to feel like part of that world.
You might want to experiment using just white, black, and primary red, yellow and blue, and mixing your colors. It's a good way to see how colors are part of a collection and feel more natural together.
You don't have to stick with any limits but it's a good exercise. Don't do it on a real painting but practice painting a still life with an apple and a banana or something like that and mix your colors.
The paintings of paintings thing is interesting.
Before you were playing with paint and having a type of creative therapy and now it's work just like you said. Learn to make it fun I guess. Keep a little sketchbook where you work out ideas. It's good that you finish all your paintings but maybe you need another way to work through ideas without any pressure about the end result.@Untruth have any advice on how to discipline myself to get another painstaking piece started? I'm scared of hard work
Yes, "learn to make it fun". Good advice!Before you were playing with paint and having a type of creative therapy and now it's work just like you said. Learn to make it fun I guess. Keep a little sketchbook where you work out ideas. It's good that you finish all your paintings but maybe you need another way to work through ideas without any pressure about the end result.
It's all about the process anyway, not the end result, because there is always another project.
I think you're putting the pressure on because you're comparing your latest work to your early work and now you're thinking too much about improving or keeping a certain standard. Just keep working.
Also what I wrote the other day about using primaries isn't important since you've already done that and understand the idea. What you might do instead is try to make any color you use (straight from the tube) part of your palette for that painting by using it mixed with your other colors, too. This way it looks like part of that world.
Keep doing self portraits and working from photos or live models, too. It seems like you get something extra from that.