Hey Steemit Family. I hope Everyone is having a great day. It was another long night for me finishing up this painting. Went to bed at 9 a.m. and woke up at 11:45 a.m. This 18" x 24" oil painting is what I have been working on for the last couple of weeks. So I would like to share a bit of the process with you, but first a quick announcement.

Custom Portrait Winner

The winner of the 8" x 10" custom portrait drawing is @chelsea88. Congratulations. I will be in touch later today. For those of you that didn't win do not worry. I will do more of these types of giveaways in the future as my way of Saying,

"I Friggin' Love You All"

Back To the Painting

This is a painting of my youngest sister with her new baby boy, Cannon, and her fiance Charlie. This is definitely not my typical portrait. It was very challenging and fun to paint. I started this painting a little different than I normally do. I knew the blue sheet hanging over head was going to be a bit of a dominating force as far as color harmony goes so I wanted to started of with a paynes gray wash to begin with and then made my drawing over that. Then I started with the sheet. Most often I try to cover the whole canvas before really getting to any detail anywhere, but I wanted to make sure that early on I got everything in the right color and value family. So I started with the blue sheet to get that settled in to build my world of blue.

Lazy Palette Works Pretty Well.

In the beginning I was just working off of an old overused and dirty palette so I was being a little lazy and decided since I was only working with blue at the moment that it didn't matter. By the end of it all I mixed all of the colors here using Payne's Gray, Pthalo Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White, Cad Red Light, and Alizarin Crimson even made a short guest appearance. This is definitely the most limited palette I have ever used in a oil painting, and you know what? I like it.

Once I get the blue sheet in my next goal was to attack the pillow in the foreground to make sure I had some of the brightest whites in the picture brushed in at an early stage in the painting as a way to really keep an eye on my range of value. It is hard to tell in these images but the subtle temperature changes in the pillow really set off the blue reflected light.

Then I worked some of the skin tones in a little bit so I could test the skin against my reflected light and make any adjustments to the reflected light on the pillow

Here I just wanted to make sure that I got the strongest highlight down on the sheet above her face again as a way to keep my range of value in check

Here you can see me testing little patches of color to find the flesh tone that I wanted. It is hard to get a good idea of the colors in these pictures because of the glare and the low yellow lighting of my room.

Then I spread it all around to face. The colors seem a little saturated at this point as I am trying to lay down the base for capturing the glow of her face. At this point I am really trying to make her glow a little bit, but at the same time trying to not pull her too far forward in the space with color choice.

Here I just used some highlights to give her face some shape.

These hairnets were a bit of a pain in the butt, but they were also kind of fun to paint. I like drawing and painting things with some degree of transparency. I might even make a little tutorial on it at some point if anyone is interested. The trick is really just not to get discouraged in the early ugly stage.

At this point it is all about adding temperature and tone differences while adding in your medium shapes. I also had to do a bit of blue-ing down on the top of the head underneath the hairnet since I initially got it too warm.

Then I just added the details and highlights.

Laying in a face. Nothing to really see here

Blocking in the face mask

Adding highlights and temperature changes, and voila an almost done painting.

I still have quite a few touch ups to do on this to get everything cleaned up and in the same world so to speak. Overall, I really like the range of value throughout the piece as well as the sense of depth. Although this was a pretty technical photo I think it was a fun and interesting photo choice. The composition is just naturally interesting to me. There is basically a big x marks the spot right above one of the main focal points made from the sheets in the back the cables by her head and the crease in her arm. The angle that the pillow comes out of the frame in the foreground really added a nice sense of space. You can't tell in this photo, but if you walk in front of the painting at just the right angle it almost seems as if you are stepping into the room. I have had a lot of fun with this one and feel like I learned quite a bit. What do you think?

Hop in the comments and let me know what you think about the painting, or the process. Is there something you would like to know more about? As always critiques are welcome, even brutal ones. Let me know what you think........Seriously hop in the comments and say something whether it be question or complaint.