Portrait painting in oils

I started off with a bit of ordinary turpentine and a touch of burnt umber and roughly painted in the shapes of the face starting from the top of the head.

Once I painted in the shapes of the face and head I started blocking in the shadow areas with the same burnt umber and turpentine not bothering about the runs of wet paint. This is a bold painting not a painting where everything is smoothed out and blended.
 

When all the shadow tones are painted in with a thin burnt umber I then started to paint in thicker paint but not too thick for the shadow areas to build up the paint consistency. Starting in the shadow areas first with a touch of burnt umber, ultramarine blue, cadmium red, a touch of white and a little turpentine.
 

A lighter mixture of these three colours and a little thicker I painted in the middle tone areas of the face working from the forehead down.

Although at this point the middle tone areas look a bit dark and bloody this is only a rough stage.

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