i worked along with you as you painted. I did not have a reference photo and so I made up a head. I think your light average is a lot lighter than what I was using. I also was working way too small. I am sure I will improve as we move forward.

Grey scale demo attempt #1 I think my highlights are not popping enough, but I’m trying to avoid using pure white

Grey scale demonstration and reference

Went back and did a few grey scale paintings for practice. Used reference for the first and third. The second was made up

Hello, @Morgan Weistling ! I've just started the course and have enjoyed it a lot so far! I know this is a spot for posting the assignment, but before I actually do it, I just wanted to ask you a question: for this grey scale demo, are you using walnut oil mixed into the paint you have in your palette? I see in the video that you dip your brush in a bucket (pretty sure that's walnut oil), but I just wanted to make sure, as it seems to make a big difference in terms of how much the paint runs/flows on the canvas. Also, is this the way you would start an actual painting, thinking in terms of fat over lean, considering adding walnut oil right in the first layer would make the paint "fatter"? Or am I getting those concepts wrong? Haha Thank you so much, in advance, for your time and the effort to put together such a valuable course!

I did a "quick" head for both grey-scale charts. I wonder if my shadow and light family could/should be closer in value to each other, especially on the female head? In hindsight the darkest dark of the female head chart also feels like it might have been too dark in value.

AMAZING demonstration! Also Morgan, if you ever need a different occupation, you’d make a good stand-up comedian. I enjoy when you get tickled by something you’ve said. Okay …. Back to business.

I did a small study using your painting as a reference. When I first put down average-shadow-gray, it looked too dark, so I mixed more white to lighten up. Then when I started to put down light family colors, the light colors looked very dark. I should not have changed the average shadow value.

Since my canvas boards were still drying from gesso I decided to attempt this with pastel on grey Canson M-T. I put a value scale on top; I think I got a bit confused between half tone and reflected light which may have been because they were both so close to the value of the paper. Good exercise.