My first extended oil painting! I was a little nervous about using oil at first; Out of all the traditional mediums, oil had always seemed to be the most "traditional." Turns out I like it a lot! It's quick, easy to blend, and there is a lot of control—which is the main thing that attracts me to the digital medium. 

I painted this in two sessions. 5 hours getting the proportions down and then two 10 hour sessions of rendering. In my limited experience with the medium, I've found that I like to do a lot of the value mixing on the canvas—hence the long sessions. Yes, oil takes about a week to dry but it only takes a day for it to be too dry to mix with new stuff. With the second session, I practically painted over everything again so that I could recreate the gradients; Not to say the first session was a waste, it fortified the proportions, but it showed me the constraints in my way of using the medium.

The Head Drawing classes final project lineup. One by one, each was placed on an easel for a class critique. We've all improved so much! At the onset of this portrait, the professor said not to do any extreme facial expressions if we haven't had any previous experience using oil. Being one of the few who had printed a chosen reference photo early, I immediately showed him a sheet of this big smile. He laughed and said the masters from long ago could never have painted an expression like this because there is no way a model could hold it for long. It's interesting to see that tradition of neutral expression portraiture across the wall today.