Oil Painting: Work in Progress

[ Mark Vallen. Portrait of Poet, Megan O’Reilly. Oil on wood panel. 9" x 14". 2007. ]

I’m currently working on a number of new oil paintings, here’s one I just started - a portrait of a young poet friend of mine. Around a third of the way completed, I’ve just begun to work on the hair. Megan is a natural red head, so I did the underpainting of her hair in yellow ochre and cadmium orange, and I’ll eventually finish the hair by painting over the area with burnt sienna - allowing some of the bright underpainting to show through. My model is fair-skinned, so I did the underpainting of her flesh in terre verte (green earth), which I’ve allowed to show through in areas of shadow. So far I’ve been using paint right out of the tube, thinning with a bit of turpentine but using no other medium. In the later stages of the painting I’ll use stand oil (heat thickened linseed oil) for my medium. Wanting a smooth and finished look for this work, I’ve been painting it using red sable brushes.