This painting is still in progress. I will add to the demo as I complete the painting.

I made a fairly accurate drawing on primed MDF - sorry I didn't take a pic. of the drawing stage ! Using a very turpsy wash (a lot of turps mixed with a very small amount of oil paint), I start on the underpainting. I use a rag dipped in turps (not runny) to wipe out the highlights (or maybe where I have gone too dark). If I find I am getting an area totally wrong, I use the rag to wipe out that area altogether. The whole point of the undepainting stage, for me, is to get the lights and darks in, and to work out any problems I may have. It a map for the rest of the work. I keep at it with the underpainting until I'm satisfied.

Once I am satified with the underpainting (it will do it's job), I start adding colour. At this stage I am not using any medium - just a very small amount of turps to make the paint workable (not too stiff). Here I start with the background next to her face. I want to get this area in before I start on the skintones, then I can judge how dark or light the skin should be. I also start adding shadow and darker areas here and there around the face.

Here more colour is added. The paint is not laid on thickly at this stage. I don't work solely in one area at a time, but jump here and there in the painting - making sure that the colours I am using are used throughout the painting. This will give the finished painting a very harmonious look. 

Here I am starting to add colour to the face. In order to do this, I need to lay in the colour of the bandana around her head. I am still laying in a thin layer of paint - with a light hand. As a matter of interest, the only areas not covered by the second layer of paint at this stage are the collar and the earring. The earring is shown merely by wiping out some of he original underpainting with turps. But already it looks like an earring !

More to come !