Sargent's Lady Agnew

[Karin Wells]

I looked at this and at your closeup....don't redefine the nose at this stage. You don't need dark....you need light. Sometimes what we need is the exact opposite of what we think. When you begin to add light, everything else begins to appear darker by comparison.

Try some gentle light in the face starting with the highlighted areas.

To make light, mix the exact color of the sikntone before you and add (what I call) "the universal color of light."**

**To mix the "universal color of light" you add Winsor Newton Yellow ochre pale to titanium white until you approximate the color of WN's Naples yellow. You can tweak this mixture by adding more or less white...

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Hi Karin,
Thank you for taking the time to look at my painting and post.

"don't redefine the nose at this stage. "

Do you mean to do it at another time? When would you redefine the nose and whatever other shadows need warming up?

I understand that I need to develop my own method of glazing, to some point, but from reading your posts it seemed to me that the next thing to do was warm up the shadows. I know there aren't formulas, I'm just trying to understand the reasons behind the steps.

Joan

[Karin Wells]

When one adds a dark too early, it can tend to appear much too dark later on. How can you judge darkness without light?

Trust me, build your light first and then enrich and warm up your deep shadows at the end.

Building light helps you define and locate your halftones. You must make sure that you don't goof and warm the halftones along with your shadows.

A halftone is the cool area sandwiched between warm light and warm shadow. It is where light and shadow meet, i.e., halftones are neither light nor shadow.

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Ahhhhhh, now I get it, that makes perfect sense. Karin, I do trust you! I just want to understand why I'm doing what I'm doing and now I see the 'light' (I'm getting silly, time for bed for me!)

Thanks again Karin,

Joan