Loose style portrait

I have just started a portrait of this gorgeous little girl. I am using acrylic paint on box canvas and it is to be a black and white loose style portrait with a hint of colour - a bit like the old fashioned black and white photos that photo- graphers used to tint with inks for a hint of colour. As you can see, for the first few stages I have laid down quite a lot of bright colours, oranges and blues, for contrast. Applying bright colours across a canvas as a base is a way of unifying a painting and giving it depth later on.

London Training Company Portraits

This is the finished portrait of Lesley. From the last post you can see I worked on her skin tone, adding more definition around the eyes (which included enhancing a few laughter lines - sorry Lesley!) and adding highlights and lowlights to her hair. If only hairdressing were that simple! I have just emailed the final picture across to the offices at Mouse Training and their response was, "Wow, that's really lovely (you've captured her twinkle!)". I hope Lesley has the same reaction.