My project for course: Artistic Charcoal Portraiture: Creating Atmosphere

I have finally found the time to dedicate myself to a project again. When I found the reference for this drawing, a high-contrast black and white portrait on Razelle Troester's Pinterest profile, I couldn't help but pick up charcoal pencils.
I tried to combine the techniques I learnt in Tianyin Wang's animal drawing course with Sarah Stokes' tips to create expressive charcoal portraits.

Edited: Below is what the picture looked like when I first thought it was finished. I had hung it on the wall for a few days and the longer I looked at it, the more I had the feeling that something was still missing. Initially, I didn't feel brave enough to use the experimental techniques Sarah introduces in the course because I was afraid of ruining the piece. But at some point I realised that I had nothing to lose and could only learn in the process. So I got some acetone, did some experiments with it and plucked up my courage to add some additional expressive effects to the painting and and add some wilder strands of hair to frame the face a bit more.

I'm glad I decided to do it because it was really fun to experiment and I learnt new techniques that I can now add to my repertoire. Thank you Sarah for sharing your knowledge with us with this wonderful course, with essential charcoal drawing fundamentals and exciting additional expressive techniques.

Trying not to get too caught up in the details when working on the textiles and still achieve interesting contrasts.

The first darker areas of the face have now been added. I layer by fixing with Fixative in between (and making sure that no light areas are too dark beforehand).

First rough sketch and an attempt to get the proportions right. Even though I don't mind tracing reference images, I still try to start a drawing on blank paper as often as possible to train my eye and become freer as well as more precise in my marks.