Caravaggio Recreation Colour Studies

                 

It's amazing what a decade of not painting will do to your technique. It's a little different than riding a bike. 
The past two weeks I completed some colour studies of the head of St. Jerome. 

This one was the first attempt. 

The colours are not terrible but they are far from as accurate as I would have liked. Martinho's critique of this piece was a much needed reality check and addressed a lot of the issues of flat values causing the loss of shape and some mistakes of shadow value. I was also reverting to my ingrained habit of being afraid of using black which I inherited from high school art class. 

Here is the second attempt, started from scratch 

                                               

Much better. I feel I was able to create a sense of shape and depth much better. Better colour and temperature control, better shadow value, better tone overall. I'm quite happy with this one and am almost ready to tackle the piece proper. 

It goes to shown that sometimes it takes a kickstart to get your skills whirring again. I could many of the principles I had learned in my last few years of painting come rushing back during the second attempt.