STEP 06

More refinement and rendering with a low opacity hard round brush on the face, specifically again the lips, nose, forehead and the shadow on the cheek.

With that done, I begin to work on the eyes, which I had neglected thus far.

With portraits, something to remember is that they come alive through the facial expression, as well as the atmosphere they are set in. Leaving these two aspects aside may end you up with a technically great but otherwise dead image.

For that very reason I usually try and make out which part of the face is the most prominent one, the one that pulls all the other facial features together, and then start with refining that one first. Often it is the eyes, but here I found the lips equally important.

Dedicate some time to this; it is easier to correct an expression (and mistakes) at this stage than it is to do so at the end.

Also, the blue headscarf got its first detailing around the forehead.

STEP 07

Some more detailing on the eyes and face in general - just small bits and pieces here and there, whatever you pick up on looking at the reference.

Next in line is the neck again. I simply render the shadows more, again using low opacity. It may seem at first glance that it fades into black, but it really doesn't. Infact the darkest colour on the neck is a very deep red-brown mixed with deep grey-blue.

You do not really want to use either white or black in portraits such as this one, especially not on the skin, so rather switch to using the darkest colours you can find before they go over to pure black. It adds much more depth to any picture.

STEP 08

Happy with the face for now, I turn my attention to the next closest thing: the blue headscarf and the collar, to get a sense of how the face will work with them.

Keeping it simple for the time being, I only filled in the gaps on both the headscarf and collar with colour, and defined the major folds, working with the given lines of the fabric and movement of the cloth, as well as the curve of the head.

Some people seem a little afraid of using bold colours in painting; sometimes that is just fine, but here it wouldn't quite work unless you'd completely overhaul and adjust the colour scheme of the painting. So, grab that vivid blue and get to work (in Vermeer's times Lapis Lazuli was used to achieve this colour... think about it, it's precious).

As for the seemingly white collar, I actually used a very light yellow and blue, a well as variations of purple-grey for the shadows. Again it's just broadly rendered.

This is just something I personally prefer: to build up a painting layer by layer, turning my attention to one bit at a time, working my way from primary to secondary elements. For one thing it seems to not take up so much time, and secondly, I won't forget anything. Everything gets the same attention (more or less as required), then I leave it at a point where I am pretty much satisfied, then go back over it later to give it the last finishing touches.

STEP 09

Next is the jacket. Since it is a rather simple piece of clothing, there wasn't much to do: I just defined the folds first with the medium purple-brown found in it, then refined it all with the highlights and deep brown shadows, again working with the flow of the lines in the fabric.

It really doesn't matter whether you start with the lights or darks - whatever suits you best or seems the more logic to you. Though consider that small highlights (or shadows, if the surface is predominantly light) always come last, or you'll have to paint them again and again as you are still refining and rendering.

Once that was done, I turned to the back of the chair that is only just so visible, and roughly put down the few lines. The trouble with this is, if it were to become too detailed it could well take the focus away from the girl's face, and that is something you'd want to avoid with any main object in a painting. Props are there to add to the integrity of a portrait, not to divert from it.

STEP 10

Having finished the bottom half of the picture, I moved up again to the headscarf.

I painted a littlebit more on the blue scarf, mainly correcting the outline on the left and adding a few more different blues and again grey-purples to the part where the highlights will later be.

Then I fixed up the the golden scarf by first broadly adding some more of its base colour to fill in the gaps and smooth it out, again using the given lines of the folds in the fabric as "guidelines" for my brush strokes, not forgetting the wide grey-blue hem.
Next I picked a medium brown tone for the shadow areas, and began to loosely lay them out, as well as a lighter yellow golden tone to have a go at the highlit parts. For the very deep folds I again used the deep brown and blue mix I used on the back of the girl's neck.

So far, so good. From now and on it will be details, so don't blame me if you are getting bored - you have been warned! =]