A portrait sketch from start to finish - Progress and thoughts

Hi all! 😊☀

How are you this fine evening?

Today I finally had time to make a little painting sketch to get back into the swing of things!

Progress square of my portrait sketch.

It was a rather quick project about three hours from start to finish. This time I also made a little charcoal drawing before I started the painting.
Usually I just go straight in and sketch up the drawing, but today I wanted to go about it a bit differently.

I was thinking about my process when I made watercolor portraits and wanted to make a similar approach with this little sketch.

Here is my progress!

First made a drawing of my model with Nitram charcoal on my primed panel.
The drawing shows the big proportions and planes of the face. I didn't add much value but went for a simple linedrawing like I do with my watercolors.

The second step, like with my watercolor painting, was to put a light wash of a general color and value. I started with this one on the face.

Next one in the hair;

After the general wash of color I add in the value of the shadows;

I then add some of the darkest values to get a sense of how much I can push my values.

After the previous step I then start adding the paint a bit thicker and model the form of the face working from the top down.

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After this firs inlay and modeling of paint I went over the face one more time introducing some stronger colors and then the hair. I also added some more details and darker values to push the sense of form.

I kept the paint application quite loose this time compared to my slightly tighter usual painting style and I think it fits the subject matter better.

Last but not least, this wasy palette for this project and these were the colors I used;

Titanium white, napels yellow light, yellow ochre, bright red, alizarin crimson, grey violet, grey blue and ivory black.

I hope you enjoyed this little step by step and that you are all having a wonderful and creative week so far!

🙏❤☀🎨😘