Granny at the circus continued

I knew I was not happy with this painting but I couldn't exactly figure out what it was. It was a few things, actually. But since this is a personal piece that nobody really cares about except me, I figured I would go ahead and experiment with it.
For one thing the composition was off. There was way too much dead space on the left hand side. I added in a few more people which gives it more of the atmosphere of the actual place and balances the composition.
I also used DAZ to redo the girl serving drinks in the back. Her pose was very awkward.
I also tried something with the stockings of the showgirl. I printed the net stockings on acetate and laid it on top of the painting, It worked in parts, but overall it was too messy and made some big blobs of dark so I ended up going back in with the sharpie oil paint pen and making a dot pattern.
I have also discovered that gelplen goes on pretty well over the oil and tempera. I don't know how well it will hold when I paint over it though. I'm thinking if i use a layer of oil to seal it up it might be ok. We shall see.
And lastly I want to keep track of how I do the skin tones. I like the way the Gerbil Boy turned out but I dont remember exactly the technique I used so i will try to make note of it here if I figure out a good way.
So here is how it is now, we shall see how it goes:

Granny at the circus

Its been quite awhile since I posted here. This is for myself more than anyone else, though. I realize I keep having the same problems over and over so I am going to keep better notes of my progress and obstacles.

I started a new painting recently, inspired by these pictures we took at circus vargas.

 The ringmaster's expression was just too good.

I decided that i wanted to use the mischt technique that I have been experimenting with. Well not really "the technique" but just the idea of using egg tempera and oil together.


So this is how I started:

Its 16 X 20 on a panel that I had previously prepared with rabbit skin glue and gesso, so I thought I'd try it out. I thought I would try having the foreground in warm tones and the background more gray. (July 15, 2017)

This is the next day. Dark floor, more highlights

I thought I would experiment with putting texture in the rug. (July 31)

As I started putting in more details, I realized it was all too dark.In oreder for the tempera to have an affect it has to be almost entirely covering the area with just the dark details showing through. (August 7)

I put a lot more white tempera in the background and tried out 2 different kinds of white pens along with colored pencils. I always find myself wanting to make straight lines which i cannot do with paint. The watercolor pencils work pretty well so far, but the are not very strong. I got an oil base sharpie paint pen and a regular old gel pen from Michaels and tried those. The Sharpie is bold but even though it is an extra fine tip, it is pretty thick. The gel pen is working pretty well  and is more the consistency I was looking for. I put local color glazes on some of the areas and painted the Circus sign pretty alla prima. That brings us up to date. (August 13)