My first grisaille

[Tito Champena]

Thank you all for your comments.

For the most part I used several sittings with the model in front of me under a strong artificial "daylight" reflector. I did take some reference photographs, but they came out with the orbits of the eyes completely black and did not help me to do the eyes. First of all, I had decided that the eyes were the important feature in this particular person and tried to do them well.

Regarding his hair, this man had had brain surgery a year ago and he combs his hair forward to cover up his surgical scar. He likes this painting as is and he calls it the "General Robert Lee's portrait".

This is an experiment to me and by using glazes of color I might lose the painting but like Chris says, "what the heck, it's only a piece of canvas". I understand now why in the old days of the atelier system, the Master would not allow his students to use color until they could manage monochromatic paintings. Achieving correct values by using color has been always very difficult to me.