Today I worked on that subtle transition between the yellow sunset and the blue-green of the sky. It needs more work, but that's for later. It was essential to reconstruct the whole painting, and since I was working more on the upper half of the painting, both yesterday and today, that's where I began. See the detail photo below to see what I mean by reconstruction. Some people call these "outlines" but it is much more than that...really it is a restatement of the solid forms in the painting, much like bones in a body. Without a skeleton we are pretty floppy, and so it is with paintings. Tomorrow I will begin on the lower half and reconstruct the drapery and the violin. As I go I redefine the shapes and add and improve on what I saw the first time around. I do this throughout the process of the painting, reconstructing whenever there is a trouble spot, or when I need to have a line to paint against. In the end, if the black lines are out of value I can minimize them, or paint them over, but for the most part they will disappear into the painting as I work back and forth between subject and background.
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