life paintings

[retro]

some figure paintings from last weeks 5-days session. i'm trying to get to the value thing, before i start using colors. all painted in acrylics, some "wet-in-wet", using a retarder. i spent about 1 hour on each, some a couple minutes more, some less, first piece is 20 min. i'd appreciate a good critique, dont hesitate to tell me what in particular sucks. if you have a hint or two on acrylics/values i'd be grateful too. thanks

http://free.pages.at/retro002/acryl_figure_003.jpg

http://free.pages.at/retro002/acryl_figure_004.jpg

http://free.pages.at/retro002/acryl_figure_006.jpg

http://free.pages.at/retro002/acryl_figure_007.jpg

http://free.pages.at/retro002/acryl_figure_008.jpg

http://free.pages.at/retro002/acryl_figure_009.jpg

[Mindflaw]

Hi Retro my tip about learning values using acrylics is to do the same way you learn to do shading with pencils that boring exercise, where you go from light to dark in about eight squares.Only with acrylics U blend white and black.

When painting don´t be afraid to use a knife or whatever to scrape of paint where you feel you messed up, and where you want it to be really white or really black. I used acrylics with retarder in my painting in the "the life painting" thread and I did scrape of paint two times and I don´t think you will notice where I did that. Using retarder make time to do such changes.

Try using only black white and grey to get a structure and then build up the values, but still keeping contrast.

I hope this will be of some good to you.

Ps
I´m waiting for "subway creatures pt IV", man those are really good.