Further Analyzing My Self-Portrait -123

The previous video, ‘self-portrait,’ is further reviewed to help with understanding this approach to the direct painting methods Paul uses; the reason behind the ‘all over the place’ - ‘everything at once” way of working; and the importance of accuracy of impression, breath of impression, order of appearances, as well as composition itself in the lay-in.

Quote:
The key to the mystery lies in his phrase “First you classify the values.” This means that before beginning to paint, you pass an abstract judgment on the “values” - the tones of light and the dark in your subject. These are the darkest darks, these the lesser darks. These the lights. These the high lights. And there will be intermediates. Nor do you start with extremes of tone. You work from the middle tone, up and down, that you may be carrying your drawing correctly. If this procedure is successfully carried out, every tone will be in an observed relation to every other, and your painting will bear the same relation to the subject “out there” that a piece of transposed music bears to the piece in the original key. Transposition is required because the gamut of light and dark in oil paint is smaller than the corresponding gamut in nature. The surprise is that this approach is more true to nature than when the tones are “copied” piecemeal. The result is truth of relation.
-William James, nephew of Henry James

QUESTION: Could you talk more about moving the “ingbretson” start to the next level?

In Further Response to Several People