Jacob, 14"x11" oil on board

Contrary to the case with Al the previous week, looking at Jacob, I saw a much more muted color arrangement in his face. I think it was in part because of his natural skin tone and partially due to the angle of the light falling on his face.
I took it further a bit in trying to organize a muted but clean color harmony.


At times I dislike overly brilliant and vibrant color schemes in figure and portrait paintings, preferring to explore the more "earthy" feel of the skin tone. The challenge is to capture the subtle and narrow color variations while keeping the grays clean and harmonious with the light.