Ruth Rouge - stages 1 to 3

Stage 1

This painting started out as an experimental landscape trying out some textural ideas using combs and paint shapers but when I got to a certain point I just didn't see it going anywhere as I was unable to control the effects in the way I wanted. I began to take the paint off the board with a kitchen towel and liked the textures it was producing so I decided to run the paint over the whole board and then move it around with a kitchen roll which produced some interesting shapes and textures that would be ideal to use as a background for a portrait...hence "Ruth Rouge"which is linked by colour to an older painting "Naomi Rouge". The model is the beautiful Ruth Netania of whom I had a good set of reference photos taken a few years ago to choose from.
In Stage 2 I painted in the outline of the figure in dark paint and then gave the background a glaze of transparent Alizarin Crimson ready for today's painting session.
In Stage 3 I roughed in some underpainting on the figure and gave the background another glaze of Alizarin Crimson. I am trying to hold back painting in too much light areas in the figure and save some nice juicy highlights for the end. I also don't want many sharp edges, the planned colour scheme is warm shadows cold highlights.

Stage 2

 

 

 

Stage 3