we had a day painting from life, quick charcoal drawings freed up our hands and eyes. We learnt how to build up a painting from observational drawing, tonal underpainting, mixing a good supply of the perfect skin tone, our model was dark skinned but with a lovely blush from the blood just under her skin.

With a mixed base of a skin tone we were taught to make a palate of lighter and darker tones to use. I used yellow and white to lighten, blue and green to darken. It was very difficult to find the right tones for the subtle changes in colour and light on the model.

Iwe had three hours to paint aand I felt I could have painted for thirty to get everything right.

In the background I put in some forms indicating easels and tables, they are very crude and need more work, the floor boards could have been painted in more detail