even “the gorgon”– someone expressed the opinion that this painting reminded her of this mythical person. i can see the resemblance, really, especially as the curls in the hair began to attain a somewhat serpentine movement and volume. plus, the subject of this piece could certainly turn me to stone with just a look. i do not say this in a negative sense, certainly not all the time. she was quite a sparkling and mesmerising gem i thought, at least I was hypnotised– hell, that was how i got into the mess in the first place!!stop me in my tracks indeed– some of the passes i did while working on this piece were as long or longer than any i had ever done before. especially the darker blues in the hair, at one time i realised my feet were in some agony, product of not wearing my sandals, and for once i actually stopped for a couple of minutes and put them on again. i hate stopping in mid-pass, but it improved my brushwork immensely.slowly but slowly the complementary colors began to recede into the paint itself, becoming much less apparent, but affecting the texure and feel of the way i was applying the paint. i worked on balancing the color values as one area abutted another. the blue that forms the frontier of her nose needed some work, and then the green of the background i made to look rough and unfinished. the brushwork here looks pretty random, but in reality it is some of the most deliberate in the entire painting.i’ve had paintings i had to coax before, some i have had to drag out by the scruff of their necks, and others have resisted whatever efforts i have made, but this baby literally GUSHED out of me–i guess i was ready to address the matter, as it must have percolated through my system for more than a few years now– funny how things are sometimes like that.and so now it is sortuv finished– it may even BE finished, i shall be looking at it for a few days and trying to decide if there is anything left i can do with it. but i have signed it, after many an hour of thought (as i knew quite early in the process it would be an issue with me), in the lower left corner. i don’t see how i had an option, as i disliked the thought of it clouding up any of the hair, and the spaces in the lower right without hair would have been darkened as well. still lookin’ and still thinkin’ about it, but i think it is there to stay. i shall be shooting official pictures of the piece in a while, but i shall leave that for a future blog. hope you like “natasha” as much as i do.