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Thanks Alex, very much. It was something that just started out of an idea I wasn't going to take seriously - just playing with an image of a head and with chiaroscuro in order to put a patina on the canvas for the real painting, but then it just started to work so well and sort of painted itself (which is a lot like watercolours). I was trying to get a feeling of atmosphere and spatial depth. The green in the background was the thing that harmonized the figure with the surrounding dark. It wasn't immediately obvious, and I worked the background with browns and oranges until I suddenly felt that green would work much better. Things don't usually go this easily for me at all, so this is like is a welcome little holiday for me. (I bet I won't be able to do it again.)
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