Progress is our most important product

Glazing underway. A bit more to go. And lighter areas replaced with more opaque mixtures. It's kind of a shame that the most fun part of the painting is the part that goes the fastest. The glazing is far and away the most satisfying stage of the painting but it tends also to go very quickly, even allowing for drying time between glazes.

Some painters seem to get lost in applying multiple glazes. Titian was said to have done thirty, forty and fifty glazes in one area to achieve a single optical color effect, if we can believe stories from his studio assistants. (He is also said to have painted a great deal with his fingers, but that is another story.) I have not found that more glazes are always better. What is true is that the glazes should be whisper-thin and built up gradually. Sometimes I apply the glaze and then take a cloth and remove perhaps 90% of it, leaving only the remnant of the glaze that has retreated to the crevices in the texture of the linen.

There is a temptation to apply all the color in a single glaze the thickness and consistency of the surface of a candied apple. But the end result is not so good. Believe me, I've tried.