Bits of this larger oil painting work and others don’t. I found myself endlessly trying to repaint the bedlinen, to get the light and shade of the folds correct but have stopped as I was getting nowhere. It was also a fiddle, having to lean into the middle of a wet canvas to describe this detail. If I was doing this again perhaps this is where I should have started.

The other difficulty is straight lines. I’m learning that a smudge to indicate a door’s panelling or the shape a book on a shelf perhaps can work. This kind of inaccuracy is difficult having spent years as an architect always drawing straight lines.

Some of the colour and tone is good along with the reflective light but I know I can do better. The next oil painting will be from a day of life drawing which I’m looking forward to.