Thanks Jeanine! I agree the transmission is too hot! The actual painting is a lot more subdued than it appears here. That's what I was referring to by my use of the adjective "glorious". I don't know why the scan of the latest version has such saturated colors; I use the same scanner setting for all my scans. The blouse and background haven't been touched, but they look very different in the two jpegs. The scan of the earlier version looks like the painting in the blouse and background areas. The skin tones and general hair color are pretty accurate in both versions, but the blue and red are super saturated in the current scan. I dunno!
If you can see the red streaks in the area of her left (our right) breast, I'd wondered where those came from. The paint in that area is very thin, and the red streaks are the grain of the walnut panel showing through. The walnut is actually a very dark purplish-brown, so somewhere along the line the red is getting really pumped up!
I just finished painting the modification that Tim suggested. I also found this demonstration by Karin Wells that I thought might help my chin transition so I incorporated a variation on that as well:
http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...&threadid=1934
Both of these turn up the heat a little more, so put on a welding mask before viewing the next version.
I used Liquin medium, so it should be dry enough to scan by tomorrow.
By the way, I've been following the thread on your Polo painting, and it's coming along beautifully! I love portraits with a narrative element. That one's going to be admired long after we're all gone.