Smith: An Episode in A Lodging House

OK, let’s do a proper painting today. It’s been a while. I found a photo of actress Suzanne Danielle in such a high key that I thought I could paint her in a similar style to Big Ron Atkinson, leaving most of the paper white and suggesting bright sunlight, befitting the current heatwave.

Just as with Big Ron, this one only has two layers of paint: the first was tundra pink overvalued the midtones and darks, with the odd bit of tundra green and tundra orange charged in. The second layer, on top of this was tundra blue in all the midtones. I was thinking at one point of adding a third layer of tundra violet over the darks but decided to stick with two after reading the blog entry for Ron and seeing that he worked with two values. I used a bit of masking fluid to reserve some highlights but only sparingly in those places with small, awkward highlights.

The final result is interesting. Not as sunny looking as I was hoping for and the likeness isn’t there but there are conflicting vibes going on. Is this woman angry or is she submissive? And I like how the creases in the clothes and the values in the thighs give a three dimensional effect. I’m going to put this one up for sale, with the price to be found here but, because of the lack of likeness, I’m going to name it after an Algernon Blackwood short story rather than after the subject.