Hi Janet, please can you post your palette?
I agree with anyone else . If you decide to do it all over again, I suggest you make some palette changes, to avoid going immediately in the same direction of this painting.
If you "know" already wich colours to use, you might end up with a very similar result.
From this photo I would definetely keep on my palette some Alizarine and Viridian. I think you should really try and mantain the high key, I mean not to darken the shadows too much, but working on the temperature shifts to model the head. If you find some pinks, purples and greens in the lights, you will then be able to state your shadows with warm colours, like Yellow ochre+ alizarine mixtures.
Also your picture will look more mature if you don't paint blue eyes blue with a black dot in, try greyish blue with a warm dark irregular brushstroke in the middle, blurred irises edges and understated catchlight.
How do you transfer the image to the canvas? It looks you are doing well, as all of the features are correctly positioned, but then I think you are scared of loosing it!
If you tend to fill in you won't be able to blur your edges. My other suggestion thus is not to draw everything in detail, rather having a few landmarks for the eyes, nose, mouth, oval etc., but not too detailed. Personally I keep some tracing paper with the drawing that I can superimpose to the dry painting for checking on mistakes.
Good luck, if you repaint it, why not posting a WIP for us ?
Ilaria
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