I like to think of this episode as "Christ Gets A Bathrobe". I've spent today putting paint to Jesus' garment. The upper tunic can be white, but pure white is too lifeless. I've gone with ecru, an off-white, with white highlights and warm salmon shadows. So help me, the robe looks comfortable, which is more than can be said for many Byzantine clothes.
I also darkened Mary's clothing, which caused my original guidelines to get painted over. Tonight I was hot with the rigger, so I re-painted all of the folds, fiddly work.
This happy little fellow is a "rigger" brush. It's very useful for painting long thin lines, such as an illustration of a ship's rigging, hence the name. Some painters also call these brushes "liners". The long bristles hold a large amount of paint, meaning that the artist can draw a long, smooth line without having to reload. The downside to a rigger is that the tip can be hard to handle. I've been practising and like anything else, the more I've worked with it the more comfortable I am with the brush.
Riggers can be expensive. A quality rigger can cost up to a hundred dollars, but then its line quality is unequalled. That's something to consider the next time you look at the price tag on a piece of art and think its creator is asking for too much money.
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