This painting was a study of a classical, historical process using burnt umber for the underpainting and glazing subsequent layers on top of that. This painting is currently hanging by our fridge above our bottle opener.

What follows is an in-depth account of the specificities of the painting process I used:

I add Liquin or an alkyd medium to my paints as a preventative measure to prevent the oil paint from cracking in the future. Alkyds polymerize your oil paints, which improves flexibility and diminishes cracking. I also use the “fat over lean” rule when mixing paints depending on what layer I am painting in. This rule states to add more oil or fat content to the upper layers of an oil painting to prevent cracking.

To create physical depth, I used transparent pigments to deepen areas and opaque pigments to bring areas forward.

1. I started the painting with burnt umber mixed with Liquin fine detail for the underpainting, then let that fully cure. Burnt umber was traditionally used because of its quick curing rate and color.

2. For the first skin layer I used my transparent flesh recipe, selectively adding transparent white for the nearer parts of the painting.

3. For the pinks of the inner eyelids, I used carmine with trans white or titanium white for the pinks of the eye depending on desired depth, trans for deeper parts, and titanium for the nearest parts. I added caput mortuum for the darkest and deepest parts of the inner eyelids.

4. The iris is painted with sap green and yellow green ural.

5. The sclera (the white of the eye) was painted in 3 parts. The left side is a mixture of natural burnt umber, caput mortuum, and dove grey. The lower blue is Schmincke paint called “Blue Grey No. 2” with ultramarine deep and titanium white. The right side is a greater concentration of caput mortuum mixture and my trans flesh recipe.

6. Hair (eyelashes and eyebrow) was painted last, and from this experience when using this process I now paint hair in the underpainting stage.