Week 18 - Impressionism and Post Impressionism. Portrait in Cold and Warm Colours

I want to start by saying I am quite proud of how my use of colour si evolving. Yes, it might not be perfect, but in just two tasks it had gone from an unblended mess of missused colours to quite a decent choice of pallete and blending, so I am really pleased and excited to develop my skill further.

I started by sketching a quick thumbnail in order to establish the composition.  

I placed the portrait slightly to the left, since I had a partial 3/4 view. I then started constructing the face by meassuring and using verticals and horizontals in order to figure out where each part of the face was in relation to the others. This time, I worked with multiple colours from the beginning in order to make sure they blend and fit well together. I used pure blue only in the eyes, in order to make them the focal point, as I believe they are one of the most expressive features of the face. They are believed to be "a mirror of the soul" so bringing them forward would also help convey the personality of the model better. I used purpled and a warm brown for the shadows.

I then added the midtones using an orange colour and, for the lighter tones, yellow. 

After shading, I had the same problem as I did with the warm colour portrait. The eyes became too small for the face because of the dark shading, so I had to make them bigger and bring them a bit outward to not mess up the proportions of the face. 

This is the final outcome after working on the clothes too. I think some more contrast on the face would be useful, as well as some more work on the clothes area.

After fixing this, I will post the final work here. 

After getting feedback, I tried to add more colours and blend them more, as some of the transitions were harsh. I added more contrast to the eyes and fixed their positioning as one of the pupils was slightly off and the right iris was too small. I blended more purple in the light side of the face. 

Overall, I am starting to enjoy using colour, and I am quite proud of the palette choice here as well as of the shading on the face. I think after adding more contrast it will look even better.