4:02 PM: saved by the bell! just as i was preparing to move on to gaze 31 & bring gaze 30 to the house, mikela walked over & pointed out something that was bothering her. and she was right. the blue dots on the face were too strong, and were reading like a beard. so , on the one hand, as i said a few days ago, this is not a copy of a vermeer. on the other, her face, which was beautifully painted, had been worked on yesterday with mostly good results in terms of the overall picture plane. but i was too close to it, and needed feedback to see what became immediately obvious. so i tweaked that area, and a result the entire painting has begun to sing it's song now. but the final acid test will be when i bring it over to the house and we can gaze at it in various conditions and in the company of other gaze series paintings. BELOW: yesterday's version on the left, and today's, right.
10:06 am: as soon as i get to the studio, i'll be un-stretching & re-stretching gaze 30 onto plain wood stretcher bars without the heavy masonite so it can be brought to the house this afternoon for final evaluation. i'll start the drawing for gaze 31. it will be 32x32", and i've not yet selected an image to work from. here's a detail of one of the stages of gaze 26 back in june, which was painted over several times before arriving at the final version. (right) which is based upon a late 19th c. b&w photo of a native american girl.
