Mystery painting, shading begun

That looks so awkward, doesn’t it?  Well, I promise it makes more sense when you can see the whole thing together. 😉

I’m beginning to glaze in the shading using Payne’s Gray to keep the shadows cool.  My intent is to keep the focus tight and high-contrast only on the faces, letting the rest of the bodies to blur into the background.  At this point, it looks a bit like a watercolor painting, and is fairly loose and brush-marked, but it will start to look more like a black and white photo as I go along, later getting the color that will make it “real”.

I think I’m done for the day.  Catch you up tomorrow!