Sean Dead Color 1

This is the start of the actual painting process. It is a dead coloring of just the shadow shapes, and the dark shapes like the hair.

I always start working a painting by to the darkest darks first. In this case I painted the black of the hair and the beard first. Then when that is established I can use it to help me judge the proper value and color for the next darkest patches in this case the lighter beard parts, the side of the face shadow, and the shadow on the neck.

Dead coloring is when you have a flat value or color that is kind of the start of your underpainting. It is sometimes called an ebauche.