Progression

I'm showing two photos of this painting taken 3 hours apart.  (I love my new iphone!) I photograph everything so easily....

This is a painting I worked on this week.  I did it from a photograph that I took a few years ago of one of Josh's friends and her little son, Dominic..I began it about two weeks ago by first toning the canvas either veridian or thalo green with turpentine....can't remember which...I like the effect of the fleshier cadmium reds and oranges over the green.  Just going directly for the flesh over a white canvas just doesn't work..It has to have something to vibrate against.  Thalo blue would be good too.  The Old masters used the verdaccio effect of an earth green or green oxide  mixed with black and painted all the values as an underpainting first.. I like doing that as well but it often inhibits my looseness and my feeling of intuitiveness that can come at the end of the painting.
Anyway........after the turp thalo I drew in the figures with burnt umber and tried to hit all the values.  I intended on getting to it right away but couldn't so when I went back in to add the color the umber was dry which was fine.

I started with the background......then the clothing, then worked on the flesh...The one on the left was after working for two weeks.   It seemed adequate but didn't give that feeling of accomplishment that I like to get so I started out making a few fixes with the values and drawing part until I warmed up and then got bolder with tackling some of the imaginary garden I installed in the back ground.  I  originally had this set up in my back yard on Orchard Ave and I frequently return to the feeling of that garden.   I used medium (neo meglyp) and some glazing to warm it up and eventually working with bold yellows, (Love Indian yellow and alizarin or grumbacher red) oranges, reds and greens as well as dipping into the scrapings,(mud) to neutralize part of it created the effect of the painting on the right...I think I came in from the studio around 6:45 PM.  I'm pretty sure it's done now, though sometimes after it dries I see some areas to wake up again.  Hopefully it will dry, I'll paint some medium over it to even out the glare and finally put a varnish on it when it's dry.