Spikus Aurelius

My current subject is Lawrence, although a subset of his friends call him Spike. He's an actor, and looks like this:




















Where I stand on "Lawrence J. (Spikus Aurelius)" looks like this:




















There's always a moment when I look at the black and white (for lack of a better term) silhouette and wonder if I should stop here. It's hard to see on the blog, but the image on the canvas feels very much like a white marble sculpture.

I actually did stop with my picture of St. Joan. This is where I ended up:



Because her canvas wasn't gessoed, her skin takes on a nice cafe au lait coloring. At this point I chose to stand pat.