Work in progress

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Alright, it's getting tricky (as it always does). I'm going to do my best not to get crazy frustrated and toss it in the garbage :P "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming" (thank you, Dori)...

I'm using a photograph as a reference for this painting, and the photograph may be a little overexposed--the skin tones are really light. And when I make the skin tones as light as the reference photo, they look so cool in temperature. So I feel like I'm going to need to overexaggerate the warmth in the shadows and where the light meets the shadow to compensate. Also, I had placed the baby's face totally wrong--it was about 3/4 of an inch too far to the right. So it took a few times of redrawing and wiping it out, just to get the placement down. Now I'm fighting to keep the baby looking like she has the breath of life in her, while maintaining the ultra fair skin tone :/ The variations in skin tone are so, so subtle on the faces of babies. Yikes.

Anyway, I'll just keep plugging away at it. I can't remember who said it--maybe Robert Henri? That every painting is evidence of a great struggle. Definitely true for mine, ha!

And since I'm sure you were wondering what my current music obsession is, it's Paolo Nutini, especially this song--just can't stop playing it on my uke:

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