No, I’m not being redundant; I’ve entered the phase known as “first painting.” Yesterday I did “dead coloring,” or filling in the cartoon (yup, the line drawing is called the cartoon) with flat, average shades. In this picture, the hair is still at that stage. The idea of first painting is to start to give form and depth by adding different tones. After a rocky start, the instructor helped me mix the right colors for her face, and I think I made some decent progress after that.

I’ve definitely done this double-take more than once here in Florence. (Apologies; forgot to take a pic of my painting progress today!)

Wonder what kind of reaction I’d get if I went in tomorrow, scribbled this, and ran out the door to spend a leisurely week getting fat(ter) on gelato.

A quick sketch I made while sitting in Boboli Garden. It’s a sculpture/fountain in the midst of many plants and trees.

Started up with the paint today; just a re-do of the sketch with very diluted raw umber, then a background color. Monday we’ll start in with “dead coloring,” or thick layers of flat color. Here’s a look at how the drawing was transferred. First, I traced the sketch with red pencil. Then I loosely traced it on the opposite side with charcoal. Finally, I laid the charcoal on the canvas itself and traced with a pencil to transfer the charcoal.