After the race III- step II... getting my hands dirty... with dirt tones!

For the first color layer, I decided to go with this rather simple grey color scheme leaving the sienna underpainting show through...

... I saw an opportunity for some painting knife work on the background... so the second color layer gave me this:

I zipped through this one without thinking too much, applying colors in a rapid sequence as if painting a watercolor (with the same kind of panic city approach!)... until I reached a certain level of satisfaction.

I will leave it alone for the rest of the afternoon before applying a few final touches tomorrow morning when my mind is clear (the updated version will be in the slide show). I need to recuperate from that painting frenzy! It seems that, these days, painting for me is like making the best of an emergency!

Note to self: "Now that I think of it, my abbreviated painting technique, sort of a short-hand approach, seems to follow its own evolutionary course... beyond me. I think where I can really have an impact on my short-term development is in my choice of subjects (the human body still or in movement, water and aqua environments), in the way I crop these subjects and in the way I present them (ideally with multiple view points in the same picture, something single photographs can't deliver). Leveraging abstract patterns in composition and in the rendering (brush strokes, textures, high contrast) will also be important. This is what I will endeavour to do until the end of the year."