Here is the veronica 3 canvas after a couple of work sessions.  I decided that I would develop the verdaccio layer more completely and THEN return to the light lines, applying them on top of a three dimensional underlayer.  The flesh layer I will be applying in the interspaces between the light lines,  to retain a sort of patchwork effect, leaving some green to show through in the shadow areas...
Most importantly though, I will be attempting to capture the laughing expression...I

It has been raining like mad here in Ibiza, huge thunder and lightning and sideways rain....the kind that works its way beneath windows and doorways and accounts for the flooding of not one, but two studios this week!!!!  I have been without internet, electricity, tv and phone for most of the week, with a mop in one hand,  running up and down the stairs to the electric panel...

I did get to town today to invest in another background idea for Veronica II, a sort of dusty aqua color.   I was looking at a Modigliani background with a dark underlayer and a lighter, sort of atmospheric overlayer... this will require some layering, getting a bit darker , getting rid of pattern.... one step at a time...if I move away and come back to it perhaps I will be able to see it again...

ok, here comes Veronica III, the first canvas of the series.  I really like this image, upclose and personal, with a strong facial expression and lots of light lines across the face and chest. and I just love the bracelets on her arm.  (I know you can't really see them yet in the image, but they are coming!)
here is the first layer of the underpainting...the green layer of an underpainting is called "verdaccio" and when it sort of peeks through from behind the flesh paint layer above it, it really makes the skin look alive.

One thing has turned out to be true of my creative cycle:  in working each piece, I navigate through various stages of confidence and even euphoria, running the entire gamut to despair and refusal.  It seems in each work I must reach a crisis moment, a moment when I am ready to throw in the towel and toss the piece altogether...that's it, it's ruined, nothing can save it now....all that work lost to a total  lack of inner vision...
But unless I go through that crisis, that dark place, the piece will never be really good.  So I am holding on here, waiting to get through the tunnel somehow, maybe tomorrow. or next week, who knows...

Is there anything scarier in this whole wide world than a blank page?

For two days I have avoided starting my two new images, the pastel and the canvas.  I have them primed and ready to go, but I have been avoiding the next step by all possible means, this morning I even resorted to planting cat nip for Mighty (our cat) and out of season pepper plants, I have downloaded scanner drivers, and reorganized the studio, all in a (rather successful) effort to avoid making that first mark.  Make a mark, any mark, make a MISTAKE, for goodness sake, just make a mark so it won't be blank anymore.  A mistake you can work around, you can improve upon, embellish, disguise.  But a blank page, with it's infinite promise of possible perfection...whoa, that is hard to meddle with!
So I have decided to start with a mistake.  Will let you know how that goes.

Ok, well the bottom of the bikini turned out to be light blue, and the bubbles I had a great time with...now all that remains is that pesky background...I am leaning towards an unnatural color (i.e. not blue), perhaps dark red or espresso brown, a warm dark color that would make the figure pop out and bring out the colors in the skin...

In the meantime I have sprayed fixative on the image, in quantities that I am quite sure will put me on the greenpeace hit list for enlarging the hole in the ozone layer...sorry. 

later...went to town this afternoon with Jackson, the promoter of the dark background and together we picked a really deep dark red...whoa it sure is an intense choice.  will have to re-evaluate in the light of day...

have started another Veronica and I am crazy about her.  So far have only the vaguest of outlines for another large pastel and I have prepared a primed canvas in surgical blue/green for a Veronica painting which is a face chock o' block full of bubbles!!!   The new pastel, on the other hand, picks up on the theme of a favorite other work LEAN, about an outstretched arm that leans upon a wall...stay tuned...

Today is the day of corrections...I have corrected the left thigh, removing just a little chunk to slim  it down and slightly increasing the girth of the right thigh.  I have reduced the face a bit to bring it into balance with the body, even though it is in the foreground. 
Ongoing:   I have filled in the left forearm with just shades of pink and lilac and I like the softness of it, though you can't really see it in this lousy phone photo.  I will look for more areas to soften, like the chest and perhaps her left shoulder, removing a bit of the anatomical detail.  I still need to put in the bikini bottom and finish up the right leg and foot. 
I have a few bubbles I am working on here and there, those are always fun.  I allow myself one every so often as a reward for finishing something.  But the best were her beautiful eyes, so recognizeable even distorted by the water, and the nail polish, for which I chose a lovely shade of rosy red...Veronica actually wore each nail in a different color, but forget it.
Finally I shall be concentrating on the direction of the light, making sure it is coherent.  It seems to come from the upper right, so I'll have to keep that in mind.
No news yet on background...Jackson has suggested BLACK!!!

Today I have worked quite a bit on Veronica, establishing her left side, arm and thigh.  I am pleased with the mix of skin tone, sort of greenish and mushroom, it gives a sense of the real skin color and contrasts nicely with the bikini.  I cannot decide what color the bottom of the bikini should be, though I am leaning towards light blue.  The next big question will certainly be background, whether it should be watery or solid, nuanced or one tone...I like the idea of solid, silhouetting the figure in a suspended state, removing the context that explains the body position...

Decided that Jack V needs more paint.  I'll have another go at it soon.  But right now I have started a really large pastel from whichI hope will develop a group of works titled Veronica...I have a whole lot of material to work on for this series (thank you Jackson!) and I am very excited about it!  sneak preview  below..right now I have to get some more pastels!!!

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