A different kind of portrait - Oil painting by @mayasky

Hello and good day to you all!

I hope this monday is treating you all well and that you're off to a good start to the new week ahead.

In a couple of days I am off to London to attend the opening of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 206th Exhibition where I have a couple of my paintings being exhibited.

If you want to check out the paintings I am showing and a bit about the show, here's a post I wrote about it;
https://steemit.com/art/@mayasky/my-paintings-got-trough-the-final-round-of-judging-and-will-be-exhibited-in-london-3-d

I am super excited!

Not just about the show, but about going to London, a city that has so much culture and fun to offer, and also to meet up with my family from Norway which I haven't seen in a few months now.

The past few days have been quite busy with Easter meetups and missions of different kinds though, so the next couple of days I will make an effort to relax a bit before my London adventure begins.

Because of this today I am not sharing new work, but a painting painted some time ago in Norway.

''Anna with yellow shirt'', oil on panel, size 20 x 30 cm.

This painting was painted during an experimental phase where I went through different ways of building up the values, texture and form in a portrait.

I also experimented a lot with the quality of underpainting in this portrait. I've always loved when painters are able to use their initial underpainting to show through in a finished painting and seem like its a natural part of the product. That, or when it creates a cool designed effect that you think of as a clever and interesting addition.

Well, honestly, heheh, I think my painting is far from the way I would like it to be, but it was a fun experiment as it's something I've always liked in other people paintings but never tried much in my own.

Will I try it again? ...Yes, probably! And hopefully it will look alot better, but I thought I would share this process with you anyways. Sometimes it can be important and educational to see less successful works as well as the more so.

Here are some process photos!

Why don't you like it? You might ask..
Well, the main reason is that I went in with a n underpainting color that was way too warm. It makes her skin look very white even though I went in with skin mixtures with a high chroma.. I do remember considering waiting for the paint to dry and then go in with some glazing to bring up the color in her face, but that never happened.

All in all I think I spent around 2 hours on this portrait and to be honest, that was enough, haha!

When all that is said though, I am happy I made this painting, because I DID learn a lot! :)

I find that's usually the way isn't it? You learn from your mistakes which is why I do try to treasure them as well, even though it can be hard at times.

Like one of my favorite painters said so well;

'' We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.''

Bob Ross.

And with that I wish you all a wonderful and creative week!

<3