Progress on Dede painting

Wow, does it ever help the creative process to CLEAN up one's studio space!! Finally got to that this weekend and started the Dede portrait.

Did an undercoat of yellow in acrylic paint. Took the 8" x 10" photo I'd gotten made out to the dining table and worked on sketching some compositions. Then I remembered the acrylic burnt sienna that was required for the "Paint Like a Genius: Sargent" class from Phillip Wade - the class I wasn't able to attend. I assumed we were going to use it for a thin underpainting.

So I thought I'd try that for the Dede painting, and I also thought I'd make sure to go as slowly as I needed to until I really, truly liked the basic composition and values and proportions. Which is definitely progress for me! I have really good memories of paintings I've done on top of underpaintings that feel solid. Then I can just have fun with color and stop worrying.

I looked carefully at the photo and realized that it must have been taken near Samuel P. Taylor park, which is dappled with dark and light through the tall redwood trees. So I think that's what I'll try to suggest with the background.

I stopped several times during sketching Dede and thought, what a beautiful dog. It's fun. So here is the work in progress and I can attend to this on a couple of my week nights coming up, yay!