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first paint detailed with the goal of understanding how to model the face.
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Beautiful painting Holly,
I think I understand your complaint. I find myself somewhere along this same evolutionary ladder. I was always drawn toward the very painterly approach, but, I never had the courage, or self confidence, to touch it and leave it alone.
I wonder, and I have no basis for this other than my own experience and the comments of you and others, if the great "painterly" artists did not take this same evolutionary path. I find more and more that after I have established the form and I am confident with my direction, I am then able to create brush strokes and just just let them be. But those strokes are placed on top of a painting that already exists. They are not the first strokes.
It's as if I first had to paint the molecule of the eye, the mouth etc., before I could proceed. I've now moved on to painting a collection of molecules all at once, maybe theres hope. Of course there's always the chance that we may end up exactly where we think we want to be, only to find that we really don't like it there at all, and start working our way back down the ladder (or would it be up the ladder?) If that's true, at least we'll be heading to a place that we understand.
I think it also has a lot to do with becoming attuned to your palette. What I mean is that in any given session there comes a time (not the first 30 min.) when you fully understand where your colors are, exactly what your mixes consist of. I think this facilitates the ability to place that perfect color / value on the canvas and just let it be. For me this indicates that painting only in short bursts of time, instead of longer sessions, can be counterproductive.