Rochelle,
In reality she's leaning over the back of a couch. I agree that my interpretation of it didn't work out so well. I had some difficulty with it. Initially it was a pinkish color, and my husband said it looked like the girl was, well, throwing up!
Hopefully my next interpreted background will work out better. I mostly wanted to practice on her face for this one. Thanks for your comments.
Michelle,
Thanks for your comments on skintones, they mean a lot to me. And for pointing out the high contrast problems, I'll give that more thought next time. Yeah, the arms are weird, I didn't know if I could get away with it, I guess not.
Chris,
I've learned a lot from your book, in particular I love how you incorporate varying colors throughout the face. Initially I tried to create her face displaying the raw colors like you did in your portrait of Eric, but ended up blending too much and more just matching her true skin color.
You're right about taking my own photos. There are many kids in my neighborhood whose parents would love to have their portrait done, I'm just not confident enough yet in getting good photos to paint from. My husband and I did go out on a photo-shoot at the park last weekend, testing different lighting conditions, but the results were less than great. We'll try it again this weekend.
I didn't even notice the problems with the mouth. Thanks for pointing them out.