Transported: A Finished Painting

I was able to get a light coat of varnish on this painting today. I opted for a satin finish, which I really like for these paintings done on Aluminum Composite panels. The blacks aren't as deep as they are with a gloss varnish, but gloss varnish also highlights the texture of the brush strokes dramatically on the flat panel, and can be a little distracting.I am really pleased with how this one turned out, especially the way the book and the starship both feel like they're sitting in front of the painting... almost as if you could reach out and pick them up, and the way the forms of the boy and the chair dissolve into each other in the deep shadows, and the areas of under-painting peeking through on the background, softening the edges. It's exactly the effect I hoping for, and the extra work of doing the full underpainting definitely paid off. This is a pretty good image of the painting, lacking a little of the detail visible in the shadows in person, but I'll post one final version once I get it back from the professional photographer next week.Update! The final, professionally photographed image of this painting is up in my Gallery. Enjoy!I'm thinking of 'Transported' as a title, but don't hold me to that!  30 x 18 inches, Oil on Aluminum Composite.For more on the whys and hows of executing an underpainting, please see this series of posts.