"Eight Trigram Furnace" - Oil painting - Work in progress

This is a project I am working on. It is called the Eight Trigram Furnace.
You must be wondering what does that mean?

Well here's a nice article about it: http://www.innerjourneytothewest.com/english/trigram_furnace.html

In my own words:
It is a magical furnace where your soul is refined in intense divine heat.

I decided to start this painting in black and white so I can study and practice my skills in light and shadow. I will make the whole painting ready in black and white (minus some detail) and only when I am ready, will I start putting color there.
So this is actually a great experiment for me (like all paintings). I want to honor the old school classical way of making oil paintings.

100x50 cm oil

You can see some Yin and Yang stuff balancing each other out in the way darkness and light work in this painting.

I am a slow painter. I have been working on my recent paintings for many years now. Sometimes I paint more and sometimes less. Sometimes I focus more on music, natural sciences or esoteric sciences than painting. Every year I keep telling myself that "maybe this year I will get my paintings done"... :D
I have however found some nice inspiration to paint after joining steemit^^

What do you think about this?