Anne - Second Sitting

It was a cold day for our second sitting with a fresh fall of snow on Mt Taranaki. Anne really feels the cold and she was wrapped up in several layers, though I did have a couple of heaters on!

I realised I had positioned the brow and eyes much too high in my initial roughing out so the first thing I did was to remedy this. I deliberately kept that first stage extremely thin and I sanded it down before starting the second sitting. When planning a painting that you know will be worked on in layers it is important to keep the early layers "lean" of oil, otherwise the paint will crack. Especially with paint ground in safflower or poppy oil, which most of it is nowadays.

I was concentrating on the area about Anne's eye's and nose mostly. Anne has a particularly asymetric face which I find interesting. One of her eyes is quite smaller than the other, a fact she finds much amusement in! It's still in it's early stages but I'm happier with the way it's going now.