Another Portrait Challenge

They say that if you want to learn something you have to study, study, study! So it is reasonable to believe that if you want to paint portraits, you have to practice, practice, practice! This week I worked on my fifth portrait. The challenge here was that I was working from a very old overexposed black and white photo.

I'd like to introduce you to my sister. This photo had to have been taken at least 65 to 70 years ago. I'm not sure how old she is in this photo. If you look closely, there is enough information in this photo to create a color version, so I decided to take on the challenge. This next picture shows some of the difficulties I had.

First, I painted her too pale. I needed to warm up her skin tone, and much of the shadowing on her face was tweaked.

I played a bit with her skin tone, but still wasn't satisfied. I made some adjustments to the shading on her face and her hair. I also softened to shadow by her arm. After making these changes, I still wasn't satisfied. I also felt that the horizon line was very distracting. After working on is some more, this is what became the final painting.

To quote my sister, " WOW . . . pretty damn good.  Wonder who would like to have it????  It is really lovely. "
Thanks, Marie.