115. After Paul Cezanne: Detail from The Card Players (1893-96)

(After Paul Cezanne)

Oil on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 4" x 4"

Original Painting by Paul Cezanne

(Work-in-progress images are beneath the text.)

Hi Everyone, we're on the last stretch of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 Challenge now! Thank you Leslie and congratulations to you all - everyone has done really well and it's been great to meet some new friends along the way.

This is the painting that Qatar bought in 2012 for $250m!!! (That was £160m in our money, at the time anyway.)

This time, I thought I'd just pick out a detail from the original and chose the hands as it is such good practice. Oh my! This painting was so hard. At first, although happy with the fingers, I could not get the flat shape of the back of the hand right - it just looked swollen. I took heart from something Tom Coates said at a workshop I attended; he said portraiture is about painting mistakes and then correcting them until you get it right. So I persevered.

I started fiddling then remembered hearing that Paul Cezanne had reduced his work to painting the cylinder, the cone and the sphere. So I removed some of the paint and focused instead on the shape of the knuckles (I noticed diamonds), the base of the wrist and the middle of the hand (looks almost like a Ferrari symbol). Once I got the knuckles right, the 'swollen' look disappeared - merci, Monsieur Cezanne!

Have a successful, productive and happy weekend, everyone!

 Smoother

Household lighting!

Before eliminating some of the 'black' and tidying up the sleeve (in daylight)

(Schminke Atrament Black and MH Magenta)