Rasta girl

Interesting tones and textures created here Janet

Thank you Lynne. Had a great deal of trouble with the arm on this one. It pretty much reflects the photo now, but still looks wrong, which it does on the photo too! Still I was pleased with the general skin tone, which were experimental anyway. You can't do a masterpiece every time ( or any time, do I hear :) ), but the next one will be perfect!

Hmm! Not easy with the skin tones but that's a darned good attempt Janet.

Thank you Derek. Yes I wanted to try something different with the skin tones..... :)

Oh I should have said that I wasn't trying for photo realism in the skin tones, rather an exaggeration of some of the colours in beautiful black skin.

Janet...I like this very much, you have a striking image here. The boldness of your approach jumped out at me. I know what you mean about the arm and am wondering about the length from shoulder to elbow? Even if it appears that way in the photo, it might work to shorten it slightly ?...hope you don't mind my saying this...it is so beautifully painted otherwise; the head and eyes are really arresting.

Ruth. Thank you for your comments and no I don't mind you mentioning the arm at all! I had awful trouble with it, spent ages altering it and I have had it shorter between the shoulder and the elbow ( and longer, fatter, thinner etc!) at one point and none of them look right. :) I took it to a professional artist friend who also critiqued it for me at my request etc... I have now given up on it after she said sometimes some poses just look wrong, odd or awkward. I did makes some changes and then took it back to her and at the end she thought it was a reasonable reflection of the image, but agreed it still looks not quite right. She probably thought, rightly, that I wasn't going to be capable of getting it any better :) ! So I am now putting it down to a bad choice of image.. Lol ! Overall I am not too unhappy with it, there are elements of it that I like, but the arm still bugs me, but I will only make it worse if I do more on it.!

Janet...You still have a smashing portrait if you crop this on a diagonal left to right so that the roundness of the shoulder appears, plus the angle of the wrist, leaving the head, neck and shoulders. I would certainly say don't give up on it...

Thank you Ruth for taking the trouble to comment, I really appreciate it. You are right a cropped version in the way you suggest would be fine. I may go back to it later and 'correct' it, or at least try or crop it! But for now I can't face it, I've had so many goes at it! In a few months I may feel differently :)