April 19, 2019

Misse and Luttine, Day 11

Finally, FINALLY, I have made it back in to resume work on this copy! I hope it won't take too many more visits - maybe two, I'm guessing.

Today I worked on the distant landscape on the right and repainted the sky to tone it down a bit. I also repainted the black dog (Luttine). Just have her eye left to do.


Detail. Click the images for a larger view.

During the months that I wasn't copying (the last time I was here was October!) I did some research into the color palette that Oudry used. I wish I had done that before I started the painting. For some reason it hadn't even occurred to me. I read somewhere online that he told his students to use "all of the usual colors", which at the time were mainly iron oxides. I went out and bought terre verte (earth green) as well as raw sienna, which I didn't have. Today, I repainted some areas using those colors, and I wish I had had them all along.

I hope to come back in two weeks and finally put in those spindly trees in the distance to the right, as well as that strange weed in the middle foreground. The dogs' names, Misse and Luttine, are being saved until last. It shouldn't be much longer!