Making Progress

With limited time this week I have only made a small amount of progress on my portrait.  This is where I left it today.

I moved the eyes further apart and reworked, the mouth has been further defined and I've fiddled and faffed around with the right hand side of the face.

I thought you might like to see a compilation showing how the painting has evolved so far.

Don did a demonstration in class today and painted a portrait alla prima which was very interesting.  One BIG thing that I picked up - even though I watch him paint every week - was the way he held the brush at various stages of the painting.  I had a pen on hand so took a photo to remind myself and then put it into practice during my own painting time.  It felt very uncomfortable but I must admit that it made a significant difference to my application of the techniques I've been trying as well as the result.

Just so I have a reminder....here is how to hold the brush....

It helps you have a very light touch and enables you to manipulate the brush into a wide variety of positions very easily. So I will be trying to get used to this over the coming week and hopefully develop some proficiency and greater comfort holding the brush this way.