This is looking awesome so far. Looking forward to seeing it progress!

Update
 

Thank you Terri, glad you like it :)

As promised this is a small update, I had to steal a few hours for myself from 6 -10 am...
When I have more time I'll be working on the rest.
Hope you all enjoy.

Update
 

Sorry I'm late, I had my hands full with a few digital sketches....and I've just become a father :D
Back to our painting, I've worked on the head , shoulders, the book and the rest of the dress..
I think I'll build up the couch she's sitting on tomorrow...
I've used a mixed blue for the dress basically French Ultramarine, cobalt blue, soft mixing white, some Rose madder and Payne's grey...very few.
The medium was a mixture of clarified linseed oil+drying linseed oil+Dammar varnish 2 drops+1 drop of white sicative+ 1 drop turpentine.
The amount could very depending on what I want...

so far mainly this mixture dries fairly quick, not too quick, has good flow and the dried paint layer is not sticky/tacky to the touch.
I didn't get this from a book I was just experimenting with some mixtures. And I did not use too much of it..just enough to sketch out and fill in areas of color fast & smooth. Then it was mostly color and brush pressure as before.
I know I'm taking my time with this, but it just helps me with my learning.

And here are the pictures....

Mu . . . am I seeing a grisaille approach in the flesh of this painting? If so, can you say, in general terms, your approach to doing this kind of work. Looks great.

Well yes sir, sure I can :)
I think yeah it is grisaille in the flesh...and it's my 1st time using this approach..
The skin seemed so luminous and alive on WB painting..I thought I should instead focus on copying that effect instead of trying to copy color...
I chose flake white because I knew it was a transparent color and would give me the effect I needed, also the layering was Important in the 1st stages..I made sure that the drawing had the colors I needed so that when I paint my white the colors beneath would effect the white above.
Since the drawing was dry and I wanted some of that old master gray..
I glazed the painted drawing with burnt umber then started applying my white using brush pressure..and I applied another layer when needed.

When Lewis showed me that article ARC I thought that if I do this and then glaze the colors later over it, it would lead me to a good result..
So I started this one like this to put the theory to the test.

I'm glad you like it Richard I hope I've aswered your question with a good answer..if you want to ask any more questions I'd be glad to answer them.

Yes, I do like it. Waiting to see more progress shots.

You might be interested in this site: http://www.bartner.nl/index2.html He does most of his work like this, and has a couple of demos on his site.

Keep 'em coming . . .

Update
 

:) Thank you Richard, it really was an interesting site and it put some things into perspective for me.
I was planing on using Titanium white or zinc for the final layer of her dress later to make things a little colder as mine so far is warm.

I've realised that I needed to make a few corrections, I know some of them are millimeters in size but if they are doable than why not..some major changes that are half a cm are going to be too much ....

Anyway...I've painted some of her dress's blue ribbons those were pretty interesting as I've used a big brush to sketch them cat toung then i used a W&N series16 round sable size 2 to paint the rest course that part was time consuming... I had to be carful & methodical painting that small.
Well here are some progress shots and a couple of detail shots.

Update
 

Hi :)
Last time I wanted to talk a bit more about this technique, I wanted to elaborate on what Richard had shown me but I couldn't...
I like Mr Bartner's nudes... and in those his technique is quite evident. He uses his whites to model everything even hair...which was a bit of a surprise to me and seemed a bit over the top, nevertheless It had good results & was very enlightning.
In my afternoons in the faculty library when I was 19, I got to know a few things about old master techniques from a very old book....I learned that Sir Joshua Reynolds used to apply a large sum of white pigment where his portraits would be then paint in his portraits wet in wet, the portrait at that stage had a cloudy effect..if my memory is correct..
Also Rubens..in some of his beautiful studies I remember seeing figures and horses painted with umber and white...
Gainsborough also did a portrait of Mrs Thomas Gainsborough which was in white and gray. On a yellow brownesh background.
These were all of course painted beautifully....and it seems that even WB in a head study of a girl did something similar.
In this copy I'm not so sure if I'm on the right track but so far so good, I've been learning a lot from this and remembering a lot.

Back to our painting, I've done some edits, painted most of her dress, I've added another layer of white, bluesh mixed white and some purplish mixed white over her chest area. Both whites were mixed with soft mixing white, alizarine & ultramarine.
To the far right of her dress I did a series of glazes to paint that area, I've also sketched out the couch, glazed some purple over the ribbons, painted most of thier folds , painted the book, made some adjustments to the head and painted some of her hair.

I've adjusted my light to take a better picture of the painting, and here are some progress shots hope you all like it.

More!

Wonderful!