Do One Thing, Then Move On

After painting several oil portrait sketches in 3 hours and always coming out with something around 70% finished, I decided on a different tack: I would attempt to paint ONE THING completely before moving on. I didn't do a block-in of the entire face: I blocked in the nose, painted the nose, then moved on.

This was the result:

I was quite happy with this painting, actually, since it represented the most "finished" thing I've done in a long time. Even though the entire portrait isn't finished, what I did work on is basically finished. OK...so I have a finished nose! Well, that's OK. I have enough unfinished everything paintings at home that it is nice to have something a little different. Also, it was interesting to start a painting from one small detail and expand from there, as opposed to blocking in the entire head (or even figure), then "fill in" the contour.

Actually, while I was painting this, I felt incredibly confident: it felt as though every stroke was the right one, and I could do no wrong. (Except, for some reason, the far cheek. I had a heck of a time pitching the angle correctly, although I think it ended up pretty good. Actually, I learned from that: the contour can be left as kind of a "detail" - you don't necessarily need to draw the contour 100% accurately at first. Sometimes, these things just resolve themselves out of everything else that you paint!)

My painting buddy, Isabelle, thought I was joking (or crazy) when I said I was going to "paint a nose".