So, this morning, after I glazed the ceilings down and got the florescent lights to glow, I was happy with the bottom of the painting (shown in my previous post at that stage). I put some more highlights on the baby's hair, glazed Angelina's hairline so the hair I painted last night would look more convincing, and did a kind of subtle, back-lit "halo" effect on her hair as well as the hair of the baby, wanting it to be a little kitschier.
(excuse surface texture glare, it is late...)

I looked at it for a good long time, decided to call it "finished", and moved the painting to a place where I could photograph it. Having a little more distance from the work, I realized that I was dissatisfied: I wanted the whites to pop more, there was too much white overall on the top, it was all running together, etc. I decided to take the buffer day that I built into my schedule, and work on it one more day.

After the blue had been glazed over the top quarter of the dress, I was happy, as it provided a contrast against the baby blanket and her skin, but a few minutes later, I realized that I was going to lose the "cloud" of fabric at the bottom of the figure, which I thought was really elegant and subtle in its difference from the "real" cloud background. There have been two nerve wracking moments in this painting: when I put down the first green glaze, and it flattened out the whole bottom, and when I put down the blue dress glaze, below. I will spend all the time I have remaining responding to the blue glaze decision.