Behind women's eyes IX final... Seeking receding black holes on canvas!

In final analysis, I decided to go for a conservative "coloration" approach for my first black and white rendition of the human figure...

 I leveraged the black and grey underpainting the best I could using transparent color layers along with textured passages. I shied away from a more overt partial coloration... and don't mind the potentially visceral contemporary look that this technique can impart to some of my future works.

Note: Pure black is avoided by purists, but my experience with Chinese black ink has given me an appreciation for it. In my view, pure black is a "dead" color that literally creates space through the canvas and beyond, not unlike black holes in the universe, the imagination helping! Conversely, color passages come forward, as if gushing out!

Based on my previous experiments, I see two key artistic opportunities for me in 2011:

• The use a black and grey underpainting before the application of color
• Opposing abstract patterns to figuration: either normal paint over metallic paint, normal paint throughout, or metallic paint over normal paint