The Progress of Cleo

Over the past couple of days I've only been able to spend a few hours working on Cleo.  I've continued to lay down layers of colour for the underpainting and have finally started to put final layers on some parts.  The final layers have stronger colours and are more detailed in the shapes of feathers and feather patterns.  Once the whole picture is done I'll refine these further as needed.

You can see in this image I've started to add detail to Cleo on the right hand side of the canvas.  Her ear, the feathers on her face and the outer feathers.

Here's a bit of a close up so you can see the detail of the face feathers. Lots and lots of brushstrokes in a variety of colours with a size 0 round brush.

Where I'm up to today.  Moving around the canvas in a clockwise direction (no reason, that's just how it is working out), continuing to build layers and refine detail and colour placement. I've started to put the longer feathers around the beak and will retouch these right at the end of painting after I've finished the detail on the beak and finished her lovely eyes.

Cleo is turning out well and yet oddly I still don't know what I'm doing really.  I'm sort of making it up as I go along and doing lots of thinking about what I'm doing, what I need to do, how I will do things etc.  I'm painting from the outside in so that I am layering the feathers in the correct way (ones closer to the face are on top).  I am also just looking at where the lights and darks are, how they blend together and trying to replicate it.  Do shapes have soft edges or hard like where the black and white feathers overlap at bottom right.  I have a bit of anxiety about making it up as I go and feeling so .... lost I suppose.  I wonder how many paintings I have to do before I have adequate experience to just start painting and have a plan and KNOW what I'm doing.  All I can do is keep painting and trust I'll get there.