I completed this oil sketch yesterday morning. Thanks to Derek for being such a good model. I didn’t do any preliminary sketches this time and was pleased how far I got in the 1st hour leaving time for judging small marks in the 2nd hour. This was another Zorn palette sketch but I was sorely tempted to get more blues and greens in this time, it’s been a good exercise to learn to push red, ochre and black though.

It was the first time I’ve painted on Arches Huile paper. It’s similar to their watercolour paper but sized to support oil paint. My initial sketch marks were a bit of a shock; I couldn’t paint more than an inch without all of the solvent being sucked out of the brush. I had to revert to a more scrubbing dry-brush style to build up the under drawing tonally instead of a more linear sketch. I’ve got a whole sheet to use up though so I’ll be trying again.

I was pleased with the result though and particularly happy that the model thought it was a good effort.

Following the session I tidied up the hat to remove a satin look it had but decided to leave the background unpainted and un-tidied up, bare paper with the odd sketchy mark. I like the sketchy feel especially the turps dribble, not sure about the background, hard to sketch a swift loose background on this paper though. What do you think?