Still----Light years ahead. A significant jump indeed… 
Yes - proves your previous comment right!
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Just finished the first coat on a canvas of black and white gradations.
In this image, the one on the left is today’s final attempt. Coverage still much better than the other day; the transition is a bit blotchy but less bandy.
The one on the right is from a week or so ago so I feel like I’m headed in the right direction.
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Without a doubt Stuart. Very happy for you!!! 
One of today’s attempts, a second pass. Feel like I’m learning so much. I am struggling with the paint ‘pulling’ a bit, where I feel as if the edge of one band of tone is being feathered into the next rather than being fully blended. This image is of the last gradation of tr day where I put a tiny bit of medium in the paint and it was better but still an issue. I will try on a smoother surface when I make another batch, as I do feel as if I’m fighting the medium grain linen here. I think I’m also detecting some priming issues - this was a pre primed and I just painted straight which I wouldn’t normally do. There just seem to be some areas that very slightly resist the paint. Should I oil out with some medium? I’ll try that next time and see. I end every session with a mental list of things to try next time. I’m not where I want to be in terms of quality yet but I can say that the results I am getting are happening deliberately, i.e. If they go well I always know why.
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Only time for a couple today, but I think I’m seeing a better result with a little oiling out and a little medium with the paint for the second pass. The psychology of skill building is odd - as I was working today I had two thoughts simultaneously: ‘I am making SO much progress’ and ‘I will NEVER get this!’. anyway I’m enjoying myself; this is so addictive.
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A little more today, this one is a first pass on smooth linen which was much easier to handle with this technique. I’ll do my next set on this surface but will finish my current batch on the medium grain linen as I’m learning a lot by having to adapt to it.
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One of today’s - a second pass on medium grain linen. Again quite a struggle today - and I’m still getting unwanted banding as you can see, (although the photo makes it look worse than it does in person) not sure why?
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The energy that you are investing here into analysis is time INCREDIBLY well spent. The bands are quite minor if relation to the overall gradation but your attention to them is admirable. The more “perfect” (reasonably) you can get it will indeed be an asset to you moving forward. Very much look forward to seeing these updated Stuart!
Good to hear! I’ll not rest until I can consistently produce gradations that would make Ingres himself weep with envy. For now, I’m just making myself weep. Hypotheses about the banding: overblending in horizontal areas leading to homogenisation of value. Other things: I’m getting from A to B much faster and more predictably by tapering the black and white together then stippling to even out the coverage. Broad blending is proving difficult to achieve without some streaking of unwanted colour. Still some issues with paint consistency, thickness of application on the medium grain linen. On the smooth surface things are much easier so I’ll move onto that eventually.
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I had a frustrating morning with the gradations, but it led me to a thought about the importance of keeping our goals and criteria in view.
I’ve decided I’m going to stop with this canvas, take a few days break and come back to a fresh one, the smooth linen surface instead.
Here’s my reasoning:
Thinking about what stage I am at, I would say that I’m currently seeing improvements in results but in a rather unpredictable way.
The goal for me is to both achieve a seamless gradation and to understand how I am doing it so that I can repeat it deliberately. This will enable me to repeat the exercises until I have built up a good degree of automaticity that will allow me to tackle more complex variations.
At this point I don’t feel like I can tell quite what is happening, and in particular I feel like I’m fighting my first paint layer when applying the second, i.e. having to compensate for its initial unevenness. When the result is good, I’m not exactly sure why, therefore I’m not getting the feedback I need from the exercise.
So, starting from blank would be a good way of seeing how things build with the skills I’ve acquired to date. I thought it worth posting this as I found myself leaning toward ‘finishing’ this batch as if the goal were simply to make 3 panels of gradations that ‘look right’, rather than becoming clear about what I’m doing. But I think at this point that would have led to me persevering with a kind of ‘brute force’ approach.
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A second pass on one of the gradations I did on smooth linen. I used lamp black this time but put a bit too much on, meaning I was having to work quite hard to compensate for that. It came out ok though. The photo still shows banding but you can’t really see it in person. I’m not sure why the photos exaggerate this. However: one thing I realised I wasn’t doing nearly enough was standing back from my work. Anyway I feel like I’m back on the right track. I’m going to work on getting the application down a bit more economically. I also want to try some better paint and see how that works. I’ll get some Blockx Titanium White and Mars Black for that.
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This afternoon’s batch. This time with Blockx mars black & titanium white plus some new Rosemary brushes. No medium added. I definitely felt more in control of these. Next time I might try again adding a little medium to the surface first as I am noticing sinking even as I’m painting these, especially with the solid black at the bottom of the scale which, by the end refuses to move much as I’m blending. Any observations or comments are very welcome!
Oh and a question: any tips for cleaning and drying a blending brush during a painting session? With the very soft make up blenders I’m finding that wiping alone sometimes doesn’t get it clean enough to blend in a light area.
These are really looking great Stuart! Personally I do not add any medium to address potential sinking in a first layer. It’ll make the paint more fluid—but far more transparent and slippery. Remember that we are trying to maintain that “pencil” dynamic so as to make use of the automaticity and feedback familiarity that most of us have developed from years with dry media.
To clean brushes I use a low-lint paper towel or cloth and gently wipe from ferrule to bundle tip so as to minimize any particulates lodging in the brush. If I cannot get a brush clean enough with this technique I honestly just grab a clean brush. Most artist painting scales here use 2-3 filbert bristle brushes with one very soft blender to remove any problematic strokes that visually break the gradation.
Thanks Anthony - I’ll bear that in mind re medium, in fact I’ve already tried it on the medium linen and it did disrupt application. I’ll do a little experimenting with surfaces instead. And yes I shall probably just need to build my brush collection! Hoping to work on some more scales tomorrow.
From today: I am concentrating mostly on getting the pace of the tonal evolution working, and so caring a little less about material finish. I found I was overworking in pursuit of a perfect airbrush-like finish that might not be materially possible in one oil paint layer - does that make sense?
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Yes—it absolutely does make sense. I still think your early finish is respectable though. It’s alright to be juggling a number of variables at once (something you’re going to be doing by at an increasing rate anyway)—but you do need to make sure you can handle EACH variable as consistently as possible. If that means continuing to break down the process into a clearer hierarchy, than so be it. Deliberate practice actually flourishes amid such reductionist strategies.
Good point Anthony. Something has definitely happened in the past couple of weeks for me on this task. The variables have kind of ‘tightened’ and I feel like I’m starting to repeat in a way that feels like it is accruing rather than casting about for an approach, trial and error.