Lively Liz painting

Another painting of 1950s exotic dancer Liz O'Leyar. It... doesn't really look like her.


Again I followed some painting techniques from the "Painting Portraits, Nudes, and Clothed Figures" book (although I only somewhat followed the instructions, fooling around with the paint a lot.) The technique is an old master's method for oilpainting (although I was improvising in acrylics), with a warm underpainting, and then overpainting cool glazes. It really is a nice way to get some depth and fleshiness to the skin, and introduce a lot of neato, rich colors.
A lot of the skin I ended up painting and blending with my fingertips (because I didn't like the effect of the brush, and the pallete knife wasn't quite cutting it... hehe, get it, cutting, knife? whew!) But pushing the paint around with my fingers, while a bit clumsy, did produce a nice smooth but lively effect. Horray for fingerpainting!
Oh, and sparkly surfaces effects are SO easy to add in, but they makes such a great counterpoint to flesh! I love it! AND I discovered that less is definately more when it comes to detail in hair.

Listening to: Walk Like an Egyptian (Bangles)