This is Great! Instant Fan Over Here.
I really like the double exposure effect you do. I do that as well in some of my oil paintings, and I find it to be extremely fun. Depending on how complex of image you are overlaying it can be very challenging. You do it well.
The softness and range of value in her face is what really pulled me in.
The little designs you overlaid on the scene with trees is a very nice way of tying it together. It must have taken quite a while to do all of those little designs throughout the painting.
I'm looking forward to seeing more
Thank you @art-mess for your kind and insightful comment. Yes this type of painting takes quite a bit of time; I can do about 4 paintings a year working pretty much full time- oil glazing is always time consuming as it takes many layers to build up color and form. Photoshop is a great tool for composing images and allows me to do a number of trials before actually picking up a paintbrush. I plan color separately to give it its deserved attention.
I haven't done much glazing other than a few projects in school. It was a real pain for me. I always ended up starting too dark so by the time i started building layers the image looked way too dark.
Photoshop is definitely a great way to test compositions, overlays and color choices. I often wonder what great artists of the past would have been able to accomplish given the tools we have today.
Yes, glazing is a fastidious business. Logically, between glazing, we do a bringing up of the whites and then glaze down, otherwise it always gets too dark and saturated. My students would always try to go too fast with glazing (putting down too much color) and then fight to bring the lightness back. But really it is extremely satisfying and ages beautifully as the layers merge.
I think Leonardo da Vinci would have had a great time with digital cameras and photoshop - he did his best by inventing the projection method with his camera obscura.