Portrait underdrawing?

[George924]

Absolutely great work...really liking the Violette in the shadow areas. I've never been one to render hair in the way you do, I think I should give it a try, love the individual strands. Moving right along...

[douglass]

Looking better every time...absolutely gorgeous! I think the hair and ears have "grounded" the glasses perfectly!

[Pingpongfan]

I like the colour of her hair in the pic before the last as it seems to set off her skin tones really well. But her hair is probably the darker colour in reality. I love your work and thanks for posting your progress. I am finding it very interesting.
Vena

[Jaxhil]

Amazing work!!!

[Reinhard1]

George, many thanks, I am but trying and playing around with my coloured pencils.

douglass, thanks a lot.

Vena, thank you. Yes, the hair needs still to be darkened. Regina, my beloved wife, tells me that all the time.

Jaxhill, I thank you.

Just picked up the intended matting and can now adapt the rest of the drawing to it. The hair still needs to be toned down, the dark shadow under the chin needs to be addressed, but I think I am getting closer. I am just thinking that maybe our right cheekline still needs some more work to make it recede some more. Looks to 'flabby' to me, as I take another critical look.

[Reinhard1]

Friends, this is as far as I want to push this piece. The paper starts to react strangely. Especially in areas where I am layering down subsequent, multiple layers in dark areas using complementary, base colour, complementart, base colour, ...... all of a sudden spots appear which will not go away and the colour, instead of layering on top of each other, produce a spiderweb effect instead of a homogenous area. In some areas, especially in the inner corner of OUR right eye, the paper will accept colour only very blotchy and with a lot of pressure. As I said before, maybe Bristol smooth is not what I should have used. I book this under 'learning experience'.

Thanks for having kept me company and for all the help.