Finished portrait 2

After a long think about what colour I should paint the dress of this portrait I decided on red. Which, when I think about it, was probably an obvious choice.

I am really happy with the final outcome of this painting. I like the way the red contrasts the skin colour nicely and compliments the lips. I am also pleased with the highlights on the dress and although it isn't the original colour in the picture I think I prefer this colour.

I have been worried about the background on all of these pieces and have been kind of pressured into making a decision about the backgrounds by lecturers. Today I made some progress with help from the BP Portrait Award 2014 catalogue.

Gina and Cristiano by Isabella Watling is the painting from which I have taken inspiration.

Gina and Cristiano

I really loved this painting initially when I saw the BP Portrait Award last year. Now I am using it as inspiration when I have none myself.

Although I really like the way this experimentation went I will be doing other experiments on other canvases and finishing this one off with the skin tone on the arm. I am also apprehensive when it comes to putting this on the final canvas just in case it looks completely different so more experimentation will be done before the final product.