Portrait of my best friend

Over the course of the last 3 days or so, I worked on this portrait of my best friend, Jeanette. She didn't know...so when she sees it posted on Facebook and/or Myspace...I can't wait to see what she says. I'm trying to build up a bunch of these little 5x7 portraits for my portfolio...but I think she might want it, so I may have to give it to her. lol. I wonder if she'd accept a print...?

It probably took me a total of 3 or 4 hours to work on it total. I didn't sit down and bang it out in one shot like I did my self portrait. This one was done on the Uart 400...which is the same paper I used for the portrait of my uncle. I'm not sure yet which I prefer, the 400 grit or the 500 grit. I guess more experimenting is in the future. I ordered a big sheet of the 400 to work on the portrait of my cousins for my aunt in North Carolina. I will be starting that any day now. The paper just came in Friday, I cut it to the right size yesterday. I'll transfer my drawing to it tomorrow, and I'll do that one as a work in progress, like I did the squirrel. That one will take me some time, as it will be 16x20 with 3 subjects.

This picture of Jeanette was taken in July of 2008. She no longer has her hair dyed that color...but that was probably my favorite out of all of her "dye jobs". I chose this picture mostly because it was a good closeup, I just had to crop out the other person in the picture...and because I wanted to see how I would fare with makeup. I think I did a pretty good job. She was wearing sparkly blue eye shadow, and pinkish colored lip gloss. Her lips are very shiney in the picture. I think her eyeshadow is darker than I have it. But I kinda like it the way I have it. Now that I look at it, her eyebrow may need to be adjusted. I'll look at it again in a few days for a fresh view and then is there is something not quite right, it should jump out at me.

Next post should be the portrait of my cousins. :)