Work in progress: Leslie

9/18: Leslie, oil on canvas, 16x20 in.

This year and last I found the motivation to at least start a few paintings of family members from digital photos. This is my sister-in-law Leslie and the reference photos I'm using were taken two(?) Christmases (or Thanksgivings?) ago. When I set the painting aside I had done just enough to grid and layout the image, and begin to mass in some local color and model the shirt sleeve. I'd been meaning to go back to this for a while, and decided last night to spend a couple hours and lighten the skin tones, adjust the color of the background stripes, and basically try to unify the colors overall with the colors on my palette currently. Also I painted over part of a table that was on the right. (The painting wasn't lit properly for this photo, so the upper corners are very bright.)