Fashion from another planet - progress 3

The view into my studio from our garden

I've been working into the backgrounds to make them more interesting and deeper. It's a pet-hate of mine when the canvas shows through thin paint as I think it looks like I've been cheap with the paint, so I've been adding and adding until it can't be seen anymore. The result is a more interesting texture with several layers, colours and reliefs.

I really like this painting in this state, which makes it hard to continue!

After sitting staring at the paintings and my sketches, trying to work out which stage should be next, I decided to do all the skin parts. This is because the skin is one of the areas which need subtle gradiations from one colour to the next and I use a big dry brush for this, which means that the colour often goes outside the skin area.

The canvas slipped down while upside down - hence the streak.

By doing the skin first, I can then paint around the edges again with the outside colour. Although I'll have to use masking tape for those places where the skin meets the background, and that's time-consuming...

This stage-by-stage technique also means that I can't really go back and work into the background, unless I mask off the whole subject first.

Still looking a bit like an ipod advert

It's also quite hard working 'blind' like this - by working on individual parts, I miss a sense of the whole painting. I have to ignore judgement of the whole painting as I work on it, reminding myself 'It's not finished yet, it will be better once it's all in place.' Only when all the parts are 'done' can I look back at the whole painting and adjust. And hopefully that doesn't mean re-doing the whole thing. :)