[Valerie Gudorf]

Richard,

THANK YOU for the carefuly considered comments! I agree that the flesh tones are problematic. They are a bit too warm, compared with the photograph. I seem to have given her a tan somewhere along the way (or perhaps, sunburn). However, everytime I tried to cool down the skin tones, they seemed to get dull and the facial planes flattened out. I could never seem to find the right pastel stick for the midtones and highlights. I suspect that it's more indicative of my lack of knowledge, rather than a lack of the "right" colors.

I tried to edit out some of the makeup she was wearing in the photograph. She has on a considerable amount of eyeliner and mascara. I feared the heavy makeup would detract from her youth and obscure the eyes in general if I rendered them as seen in the photo. Also, I had read that eyelashes are easily overdone in a drawing or painting. But now, I may have to go back and revisit my treatment of this area.

Her nose gave me no end of grief. I agree that something certainly looks askew. Believe it or not, this the best I've managed to make of it so far. It looks to me as if the entire lower left side(her left) nasal wing, area above the lip and lower cheek turn toward the viewer. Very disconcerting!

The color of her shirt is indeed very aqua, isn't it? I thought at the time that it accentuated the color of her eyes. Should I darken the value and gray it down, or should I just desaturate the color a bit and leave it the current value?

As for the area of the neck in the shadows, I was afraid my reference photo was lying to me by overdarkening the shadows. I've also been rather perplexed about which colors to use in this area.

I would be greatful for comments from others on the forum also. Feel free to alter the image in photoshop or some other imaging software to illustrate how I might improve this piece, if you'd like.