The first bonus image shows the orientation of the original board as I was holding it while mixing colors. When I turned it sideways, I saw a face in the smear of green paint.

My sense of the developing figure was as a kind of fortune teller "reading" a gold or brass egg. Perhaps the egg is a subconscious reference to the Phoenix myth. I confess that I was listening to an audiobook of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets while working.

Interestingly the brushstrokes where her hair would be became feathers. Surely Faulks slipped into my head then to inspire the painting.