Here's a wonderful detail from Rembrandt's Lucretia (1664). Notice how the hand and especially the wrist look all bruised and decayed as a result of the handling of the paint. Maybe it's intentional, maybe it's just some of the paint peeling off due to the age of the painting. I don't really care, because this effect is just so impressive either way. I'm immediately pinching this technique for my own works...

I was trying to see if I could improve my French by watching No. 9 on Arte the other day, and somehow it resulted in this little study of Mrs Burnham. Ugh... maybe I should find some other way to study...

There are some limitations to the pose design. I find the main one is that the silhouettes shouldn't be so intricate that they become impossible to cut out, yet intricate silhouettes are considered by many to be an integral part of expressive characters. A way to make up for this is probably to incorporate interesting shapes & patterns in the spaces within the silhouette, and be very conscious about the quality of the linework. We'll see how well this works...

Painting details, mannnn...