Oil portrait - Carter - completed!

Here it is, the final completed painting of Carter. It is 300 x 300 x 40mm. Took me a few months but I am pretty happy with it, especially as it is my first completed portrait in oils.

I've taken some photos at various points so I thought I would post them here as there definitely were some ugly stages that this one went through (even though the subject matter is exceptionally beautiful and I am not biased at all).

Here is the original grisaille underpainting. I did this with burnt umber and solvent just to focus on the tonal side of things, mainly with his face. I didn't really bother with the hair.

Once that was dry I started with the glazes. Initially these were all transparent and I was trying to remember to keep the red ones on the cheeks and the yellow on the forehead.

Then when I did my first glaze with titanium white with liquin, all of a sudden he looked like a ghost and I think that was when I got scared and left it for 3 months.

I am now trying to find a photo of Tayla so that she can be my next subject. I am tossing up whether to do the next one with a grisaille underpainting as well or try it without. I did find that his skin did end up really luminous which is what I wanted and I think that may be because of all the layers of glazes.

It is interesting to look back at these stages and it does encourage me to keep the faith when they are going through the ugly stages!