I took the photo above on June 11. Since then, I have worked a bit now and then on the portrait. "Piddling with it" is what I call it. But on Monday, I decided to REALLY work on it. This is the result.
I have been playing around with the eyes for a while. In the photo, there is no information about eye color. One of the problems with photos is that details an artist is interested in are not always shown.
When Camille came to visit, she, her dad, and I talked about the color of her eyes. Camille decided they were "hazel" a mixture of brown, green, and blue, the kind of eyes that vary according to lighting and the clothes she is wearing.
Before I started working on the eyes, I looked through books on painting portraits to pick up any information that these artists had learned. I got useful tips from all of these, Painting Children by Benedict Rubbra, Painting Watercolor Portraits that Glow by Jan Kunz, Portraits from Life in 29 Steps by John Howard Sanden with Elizabeth Sanden and Painting Vibrant Children's Portraits by Roberta Carter Clark.
You will note that there is one more book in the photo, The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression by Gary Faigin. This book has detailed information about drawing every part of the face with hundreds, maybe thousands of different drawings. The drawings in the blue strip along the book binding are samples and so are the women's faces on the cover.
The table of contents... If you click on this photo, you will be able to read the contents. Clicking on the other photos will enable you to see them in greater detail. You can see those black blobs of eyes recorded by the camera.
I plan to make a few more adjustments to the painting. I haven't added the shadows of her hair on her face which give more shape to it and I have more to do with the hair. Undoubtedly, I will find more odds and ends as I paint.
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