Earlier this week I painted a very rough "Sophia Loren"

(If anyone knows the photographer of the source photo please give me a shout - if you are the photographer please e-mail me...)

The plan was to make a demonstration of a classic painting technique called "glazing" or painting transparent oils onto a verdaccio underpainting at my village fete - for one reason or another I didn't get to set up my stall but I thought I'd finish her anyway - at home...

..as I was going to do this as a live demo I wanted to make my glazes highly chromatic so that I could do them in one hit for maximum audience wow factor!

Remember at this point I'm not adding any tonal value at all - just transparent chroma.

Image 1 - my kit of parts, three of my favorite weapons - fan brushes! and 4 oil colours mixed with Liquin Glazing Gel. The colour top to bottom are -

Sap Green/Prussian Blue for the background.
Burnt Umber for irises and eybrows
Scarlet Lake for her shoal
Flesh Tint/Burnt Umber for her skin (a slightly darker version for lips)

Image 2 - One eye and two eyebrows glazed. I'll use my small fan brush to smooth out the glazes and break the hard edges - or things start to look stuck on...

Image 3 - some of the skin tone going on. I thought this looked a little flat so in the darker areas I added a little of the Scarlet Lake and blended it with my fans...

Image 4 - That shows how intense the glazes are - that's the scarlet for the shoal...

So, there you have it. Coloured oil paintings for "thickies" like me or how the classic painters used to do it - that's up to you.

I hope you try it too!