notes on copies of William Bouguereau, my version at least, my steps:
1.
Started with following colors: titanium white, ivory black, raw umber, venetian red, Terra Rosa
and Terra Verde. Need to add: viridian, yellow ochre and transparent gold ochre
2.
The
canvas was primed twice, sanded and stained with what I deemed to be a middle color, a grayish green.
 |
| copy of William Bouguereau painting |
3.
Surprises:
a. The grayish green primer proved to be a saver with so many hues to hit, against
it, tints of Terra Rosa seemed to glow.
b.The red turban, I was sure to get the
red cadmium out but again this time pure Terra Rosa, balanced beautifully with the rest, without a need to bring
in the cadmium.
c.There are no hard lines anywhere in the painting, including
eyes, which leads me to believe he used a larger brush to whisk in the needed
colors.
d. Strict avoidance of pure white, not even on the eyeballs, the colors
palette was so earthy and low chroma, that white was just too much.
e. No
grays. When a gray is placed on a green background it looks purple, wrong shade
for olive skin. The brilliance of skin is through usage of Terra Rosa and
yellow ochre with white of course.
f. Venetian red turned out to be too purple, needed to add yellow ochre and after glazes of viridian and transparent golden oxide. Venetian red is also a very vivid, high tining color in this palette.
g. Terra Rosa, seemingly the same as venetian red, completely different handling and like mentioned above against a cool green gray it glows like skin.
h. treatment of hair, the softness of handling the around face hair, especially on the girl, very shadowy and wispy, again a big brush
