"Little Girl" Day 2

Its... BLUE! So much blue! I really have no idea what pigments Mary Cassatt used in this painting (I guess I might be able to find out if I really tried...), so I'm doing my best to reproduce it with the colors I have. I even went to the store and bought a couple of colors I didn't own - Turquoise Blue and Phthalo Turquoise. But I didn't even try using them today. Today my goal was to make a "first pass", and cover all the white canvas. I didn't quite succeed, but I covered a lot of it.

Today I mainly used Prussian Blue and Phthalo Blue, with white. These are colors I rarely, if ever, use. They are just so strong. I've occasionally used Phthalo in a really blue sky on a beautiful sunny day. And they may just be a little too much for this painting.

My impression of the blues in this painting were that they were So Bright! But after working on this for several hours today, I saw that this is an illusion. Just as a bright yellow flower or a lemon is really mostly a dull green with just a little bit of pure yellow, so these chairs have a lot of brown in the blue. You don't notice it at a glance, but when you really look, you see how dull most of the blue actually is. That is what makes the relatively small areas of pure blue really POP.

Here is how much I had done when I stopped for lunch:

And here is a view of it from across the room, so you can get a feel for where I was standing in the gallery.

After lunch, I plugged away, trying hard to get everything covered. But it's hard to get a lot done when you stop to talk to people every few minutes. I don't mind (usually); it's all part of being there. And I really enjoyed chatting with people today. But I ran out of time, so I didn't get all the white covered up. That's fine, I'm a bit of a speed demon anyway. 

In two weeks (I'm working at the library next week and so won't be copying on July 2nd - just as well, since the museum will probably be mobbed), I'll finish making the first pass over the little girl. I did get something done on her legs, shoes, and skirt today, and one arm. To tell the truth, I am leaving her for last because I'm scared! But I'm always scared... always. I just have to work on it, little by little, until it develops and I forget that I'm scared. The trick is not to let the fear stop me from trying.

(click on the images for a larger view.)