Sunday, 15-May-16 21:44:16 CEST

Fernandez 15 May 2016

It is Sunday 15 May and I am on my way to what I think is the last regular painting from life model session at studio de Stoker at Wittedewit 124 street in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Next Saturday I will attend an extra-long session but today it is a regular session and the model is a man, Fernandez. The sessions are mostly given three in a row at de Stoker so this is the last one of Fernandez. I missed the first two because I went on holidays to my cottage in Sweden last week. Normally I plan the stay from Saturday to Saturday but this time the weather was so nice so we extended by one day and hence I missed one model session.

I have seen two YouTube movies of Mark Carder since last time I painted. They were both really inspiring The first talked about the negative effect of using white paint and the second about the negative effect of blending early on.

This is something I would like to think about when working on today’s painting. I never before contemplated about that white could have a negative effect on the painting. That is new to me. Phtalo blue on the other hand is something I noticed it infects the entire painting and I concluded I cannot have it on my palette at all. With white I have not noticed that it has a similar effect. Mark talks about that the other colors lose their power when white is mixed into them. I use white gesso as underpainting so I could try to make use of that for skin tones. I wonder?

Then the blending part. When avoiding blending you avoid procrastination as well. That is good. Mark also talks about a getting the values right first and I can try achieve that.

Mark also says that his method is a complete package, you cannot just cherry pick your favorites and achieve a good result. Well if I was about to build up a following of my own religion I would also say that. I am a bit anti that whole package deal so sorry Mark, I will continue to cherry-pick as much and long as I see fit.

Now I am on my way back from the painting session. It is cold. Today Anna, Jochem, Lotte, Jerie, Saskia and I attended the session. Fernando was the model.

I tried to avoid white but it was really challenging but I made an attempt at it. It did not feel adequate for me but at least I tried. Skin colors without white is challenging. The other challenge was the no blending thing. That was easier to accomplish. So I mixed “properly” and then I applied the colors and I really tried to get the levels right.

I am really cold. Sitting on the train 8654 last wagon on the way to Almere. It is not so warm today. When leaving I was hesitating if I should bring an extra sweater but I decided not to and now I have to suffer the consequences. I am sitting in an empty wagon in the train. I am cold.

So now I almost arrived in Almere. Still cold.