I’ve always had this random quote in the back of my head from John Singer Sargent about keeping the paint thick. But for the last few weeks, I think keeping the paint the paint this is best.
I can’t remember the exact quote but the gist is that keeping the paint thick will allow the colors to flow. I’m not sure what that means either. The colors seem to flow just fine with the paint thin in these latest paintings and I’m finding it easier to deal with when there isn’t a ton of paint on the surface.
I will say that keeping the shadow areas as thin as possible and the highlights as thick as possible does work well. For all of these figure starts I have a plan of revisiting some of the paintings and working into them so for that I kept the paint thin throughout. But now I’m thinking this is how I should start every painting. Start thin and build up paint as you go.
