Am I Getting Anywhere?

Or am I spinning my wheels?  The flash discoloration in the reference is both exciting and maddening. Part of me likes what's going on with the color- intense violets and blues and yellow greens showing up in odd spots next to blotches of reds.  Another part of me wonders what the hell I'm doing? Jon's not golden enough and everybody is blotchy.  It doesn't help that I'm reading Van Gogh and Sargent simultaneously. Sargent used layers of  glazes in combination with gestural brushwork.  Van Gogh blend colors with short linear strokes with a small brush. It doesn't help that my palette is too small for mixing large batches of paint appropriate for a 36 x 20" canvas.   In spite of all the trial and error, my likenesses are good-- the somewhat  unconventional colors are interesting--and I have managed to make the position of the guys believable. 

Add to this floundering abou,t my floundering about with Windows 8.1, the weekend was not a fun one. Relief came on Saturday with an Amazon delivery of Windows 8.1 for Dummies along with a very helpful DVD tutorial.  While I have figured a lot of this new system out, the DVD was very helpful teaching me to manage my photographs, my biggest use of my computer. What the book didn't tell you though was how to play the DVD. With 8.1, you just don't put it in the drive and  it plays.  There's a procedure you have to figure out after you figure out there must be a procedure. :-)