Thank you for providing such inspiring references! I struggled to paint this but it was also a joy! I decided I needed to put it in time out and maybe revisit it after my skills improve. That shirt gave me fits! I'm finding out that I am a very messy painter and I get totally overwhelmed with brushes and rags all over the place. I have a hard time cleaning the brushes in between colors. I keep having to remind myself that I am not painting a wall and to stop overworking my brush strokes. Even though I am already quite slow, I think I need to slow down more and stop when I start getting tired, because then I make a mess. Anyway I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us. I am quite happy with my second oil portrait, I love the old world/antique feeling of it!

Morgan - Thank you for the course. It's hands down the best painting course I've ever watched. And thank you for your recommendation of the Blick linen panels with extra gesso - great surface to paint on for not much money. I have a few more general questions that I would love to get your opinion on so I'm going to just ask them all at once. 1.) Do you still paint your larger pieces on Claessens 166? If not, what are you using now? Also do you add extra gesso to your stretched linen pieces? 2.) Could you explain exactly what you prefer to use (products, sheen, etc.) and what your normal standard operating procedure is for varnishing your paintings? 3.) Any tips for photographing your completed artwork? Your paintings are incredible but the photographs of your paintings are excellent too so any help there would be much appreciated for people like me who can't seem to photograph their artwork well.

It's was an excellent exercise, I lerned a lot but I'm definitely not happy with the results. I tried painting without sketching it first so it gave me a lot of trouble later. Gonna try it again some time later on.

I find myself getting too blend crazy at the end, I can't seem to stop myself. One of the things I'm really struggling with is the thickness of the paint, I feel like I'm applying it too thick. It still looks too graphic to me, but overall I'm happy with the result.

Learned a lot from this one. Took a long break between sessions and had to remix everything but it was good practise overall to get the matching values from scratch. Also continuing after everything is completely dry is daunting. I think I'm most happy with the shirt. Kept it loose and it turned out okay.

Final Touches

Here's my Annie Oakley! What do you think Morgan?