I worked on the chair tonight – I don’t know what came over me but I looked at it as it leant against the window and my palette was freshly loaded and lo and behold colour has been put on the canvas! I’m pretty sure that I am not putting enough paint on the canvas but at least I am over my fear of working on this. Having spent so many months on the grisaille the terror of ruining it was seriously hampering any advances on this piece. I’ve become very philosophical about it though. I’ve decided to face this project as a learning curve, not as a masterpiece. Anything that I learn doing this is another piece (please excuse teh pun!) in the jigsaw of my art education. It becomes even more urgent that I get a daylight bulb when such subtle colour changes come into play. One interesting discovery is how I can picture the chair so precisely in my head. All those hours of studying it and doing the pastels has it locked in my memory. We will see what Michael has to say!