[Daniel Vipperman]

Linda and Garth, thanks very much for the comments. Not discouraging at all. These are my third and fourth attempts at portraiture I know I have much to learn. I am grateful for any advice.

Actually I was confused about the light source as well. Everything was very evenly lit. As for the ground I wanted to avoid being detailed around her feet and creating an awkward transition between the foreground and background.

I paint in a very loose style and I would like to apply that style to my portrait work. The problem I need to resolve is placing a recognizeable figure into a loose painting and how to paint that figure, loose, diffused...?

I included the adult (mother's) hand was to illustrate the baby's size. In retrospect I agree with you.

Garth - My biggest problem is flesh tone. I will take both of your advice and try to work more from life. From my refrence photo I was confused about how to shade the hair - it shows I know. In the future I will be more carefull when choosing refrence photos or try to paint more from life.

I am posting a truer representation of the Annie portrait. On the first image I posted I bumped up the saturation in photoshop, I will resist in the future.

Again thanks very much for your comments.