They don't look that much alike now, do they?

Hmmm... not done yet! Every time I take a picture, I immediately see a line or a mark that needs to be nudged. But I've been having fun with this, painting for 3 days, working from a photo of a friend and a printout of a da Vinci painting. I learned so much from putting these two faces into my painting and working back and forth between them. It is so amazing to see what a tiny TINY bit of shadow does to change expression or likeness. I'm not really there yet; I haven't captured the expression I so liked about the picture of my friend, but the more I look, the more I begin to see what I could change that would move the picture closer to what I want.

Used a very limited palette of alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, titanium white and, in the latter stages, Indian yellow and burnt sienna. There were a few dabs of Van Dyck brown and yellow ochre in the early stages but I didn't like them. These (except the ochre and burnt sienna) were part of the sample set of "traditional" colors in the Golden "Open" series of acrylics. I really like working with this paint: it is buttery and slippy, stays open for quite a long time.

Things I learned from this painting (again): draw first; keep the palette limited; cool and white tones first; work up to warmer layers. Perhaps best: I find that painting somebody I know well and like thinking about has kept me interested in working on the painting long enough to get it beyond early stumbles. I still want to work on this painting and get it better!

A friend

A sketch for a painting.