3:08 PM: that's it for today. the changes i made were restrained, and i think add to the subtlety and richness of the painting as a whole. her feathered head dress is more defined, balancing the rest of the composition. the calligraphic marks i made yesterday on the lower portion of her face are now more integrated into the image, while still serving the purpose of reminding the viewer that this is not a portrait; it's a painting. which i think was vermeer's attitude. it's not so much the fact that he made great faces, great genre scenes of every day life, rather it's that his first concern was always to stay true to the painterly, abstract elements of a given painting, while channeling the mysterious, eternal human truths his paintings convey. although the 9,000 people who showed up at the opening of vermeer and the masters of genre painting at the louvre recently had very different ideas as to why they were so strongly motivated, know it or not, i believe that was the x factor that attracted them in such large numbers.
1:14 PM: work continues on gaze 34, which looks like this right now. highlights have been put in and some of the calligraphy has been softened. here' a comparison with the way it looked yesterday afternoon, on the left:
10:45 AM: here is yesterday's plein air #1 in a temporary frame. looks a lot better. a frame, said tsarouchis in one of his pithy quips, is the pimp of a painting.
on first glance, gaze 34 is not quite there yet. close. so i'll resume work, being careful not to upst it's delicate balance. i'll post pics as the work progresses.