After I did the painting of Jonah Lomu I started on Richie McCaw.  Working light to dark as I did with Jonah I started glazing the under layers on to the canvas.  Working  at that scale proved to be back breaking as it had to lie flat on the floor with me leaning over to reach the middle as the paint was diluted and watery.  Glazing is a technique where thin layers are continually applied and built up to create the darker tones.

The initial painting was somewhat erroneous in it’s execution and so he was put aside for a while. Last year I built up the confidence to tackle what I did wrong in the first place — as artists often do. However, as I started to add white to the Mars Black acrylic the tone of the paint changed and I actually had to repaint most of his face and clothing — another 10 or so hours on top of the initial 30 hrs or so.  Also the image looked rather stark again the pure white background so I added a wash of diluted colour to the background.

Now, to try and get him to see it ………. any suggestions ?