It’s always fun to say, near the end of the painting, “okay, I’m ready for the blood.” I forgot to bring the maul but the stick was a well behavied stand in and worked just fine. Next week is shotgun accident. I feel like I’m getting my chops back, hooray!

Sorry for the sub par photograph, dark at the bottom. Here’s a close up of the face, which is much stronger this week.

I’m happy with the progress. Notice that I forgot to paint in the smoke. I’ve rationalized this as, he’s inhaling! ;o) Thomas is a great model and I really love working with him.
When I look at the face in this painting, the paint really looks sculpted to me, that’s interesting and different from the other work. I painted down the dark violet shadows first, I wonder if that’s why.

First Thursday went well last week. Eric and Gerry came, very nice to see them. I gave them the special back room tour of artwork I wasn’t yet showing. They went around to other galleries after, I hope they had a great time, I’ll have to find out. I also had some great encounters with some local artists, including Mark Tracy who has reached out to me. Which is really really nice and very appreciated. I put a link to his work on my main page of  my blog. You can access it by clicking on the title of the blog at the top of the page. Chloe just asked me, “how many times is this guy going to have to go to the hospital?”