Here's last night's work on the painting; I laid in the shadows, glazing over the underpainting. This is officially the Ugly Stage.
That's all just transparent red oxide, prussian blue, over the burnt umber and titanium white. Seriously. Two colors over white and brown, and I got all of that. All you need is a warm and a cool, a light and a dark. More colors on your palette doesn't make you a better painter. Which sounds like I'm being a bitch, I suppose, so let me explain:
There's always one person in a class or workshop who is utterly convinced that if they only used the right tubes of paint, then they, too, would be Sorolla or Rembrandt. There is no secret tube of paint that will make the heavens open up and make your work look amazing, but you cannot convince these people otherwise. They will spend the entire time looking at the instructor's palette, or asking what colors they're using to get an effect, and not ask anything else. They won't ask about the thought process, about mood, about logic, about brushwork -- nope, all just about what colors are being used.
It drives me batshit, because they're missing the point.
Since you all seem interested in the underpainting, I figured I'd post the whole process of painting this thing. Even when I would rather hide this stage and just show it finished.