The Forty-minute factor

This past weekend, I had the excellent opportunity of taking a workshop with David Goatley, the well-known portrait painter.  I will be giving some more of the bits of wisdom that I noted down in later blogs too. One statement that I especially noted was that David says you should only work forty minutes at a time before you take a break. The reasoning is that you stop really seeing at that point and are just "polishing your mistakes". I found this quite liberating because it is often possible to grab a forty-minute time slot  for painting rather than waiting to see if a whole longer period might be feasible. This pastel of Shelley was actually done in 30-minute sessions at Adrienne's. One 30-minute period before coffee break, then two sessions with a break for the model in between. I liked the colour that happened in this one!