First, the Part a would look like a plain black canvas, so I’m sharing a photo. Suffice it to say that I painted white gesso over the old painting then used a palette knife to load on some shiny Carbon Black.
When that was dry, I first painted down the shape off the face by dabbing on a matte Mars Black with a stiff bristle brush. I wasn’t sure the contrast was strong enough between shinny and matte blacks, so I added a little Burnt Sienna where I felt the shadows needed to be. Then I felt it start to form and added extremely thin layers of pale grey and a little white… All the paints were on my palette and I mixed the gradients of greys as I went. I needed to see it dry before moving on.
Stay tuned…