Painting in Progress: Us Against the World

Ugh. Backgrounds. I hate backgrounds. Large areas of color / gradient are annoying... especially in acrylics. Acrylics are lighter when the paints are wet... they darken a bit as they dry. Here you can see I created a nice smooth gradient for this paintings background. Lighter on the left, a touch darker and cooler tone on the right... also keep my drawing underneath pretty visible.

But alas... after it dries. Look how different it is from the reference photo! The wet paint in my mixed color was EXACTLY the color in the photo... but dry, it's significantly darker. Nerds!

2 more days to submit this! Oh no! I may have to submit it before it's done just to get something in on time...