Melancholia (Self-portrait of Jesse Waugh) is a technical milestone for me. It is the first painting I have done with the technique I figured out for the Japanese teacup in my previous painting Red Geraniums in a Japanese Teacup. The technique is essentially that used by practitioners of the 19th French Academic atelier style - at least inasmuch as I was able to successfully employ it. It essentially involves pushing two values together to blend them and create a blur between them. This creates a better illusion than alla prima, or any other technique, such as neo-impressionism, which emphasize strong brush strokes.

I somehow seem to have imbibed some of the technique which Mica Pillemer used for his Fate Casting Judgement Upon The Earth - which painting I studied very closely at a recent exhibition in Barcelona. I still have a lot to learn about how to create tight, smooth, well-defined faces and other elements, but this is a huge step closer.