Boardwalk Showers part 25

A lot of family commitments kept me busy for the past week, but with that passed, I had time to get back into the Studio this afternoon. I used that time away to give more thought to the current proof and acted on some of those thoughts today. On the left side panel, I moved the aqua color from the standing figure to the towel of the seated figure. I think it works better than the white that was there (the color of the actual towel worn by the model), though I think I'll try a paler version of the color in the final version. I went over the bathing suit with some ultramarine, which contrasts nicely with the overall warm tones of the panel. I made the neutral color of the trash can a little darker. On the right side the biggest change was overpainting the yellow towel clutched by the standing figure with a cerulean color, which again brings a nice color and temperature contrast. To create a little separation between this towel and the towel by the head of the figure next to her, I added a little violet to the ultramarine that had been there. (a similar mix of ultramarine and violet was used on the hair brush of the seated figure)

And that pretty much takes care of this proof. Last week I briefly crossed paths with Molly, whose opinion of the proof (as it looked prior to today) was generally positive. One thing that she pointed out was that she thought the overall color and value balance felt more like a gym or athletic club than a boardwalk bathhouse, meaning the former is typically brightly lit and the latter not so much. Some of that may change when the next printing switches from bright white heavy watercolor paper to the "natural" colored very thin okawara. I'll also spend a bit of time in the coming days looking at some reference photos of figures in dimly lit rooms, taken over the past few months with this project in mind.

My next step- making some slight adjustments to the block itself, then pulling a couple of proofs. Don't know how far I'll get coloring any of those before the next critique.