Woodcarver WIP 2

I've finished the background and am now ready to begin working on the woodcarver and the child.

 I kept to a pretty limited palette for the background because although I felt it was important to include it as it helped create atmosphere, I didnt want all the detail in it to detract from my subjects and what they were doing.

My board has a tiny bit of a curve in it which doesn't bother me at all while painting and isn't usually noticable when I take a photo, but because this background is full of straight lines its a little noticable on the window sill. I promise you its straight really, although I suppose with an old building it could be slightly warped :)

I've removed the masking now so its a little easier to see my outline drawing. A couple of people have asked me about whether I find the masking fluid removes pencil outlines. It does a little, but I do two things to try to reduce the chance that my outline will disappear when using MF.

1. Draw in the areas that you know you are going to mask just a touch darker than the rest.
2. Apply the MF thickly (I often apply 2 layers to get an even covering, and  a thick enough covering to allow me to peel off the masking fluid in one piece once I have finished. This both preserves the fibres of the paper a little more and avoids you having to rub on the pencil marks causing them to get fainter or disappear altogether.

Hope this tip is useful :)

Ona