My first attempt at Artistic Portrait with Watercolors

I took Ale Casanova's course on artistic portrait with watercolours and firstly I must say that the course is excellent. Ale is very skilful and explains his technique clearly and in small enough steps. I really enjoyed watching his videos and got a feeling that I must try watercolours myself, too. For many years I had thought that watercoloring is too difficult but with Ale's course it became accessible. It isn't magic anymore, it's patience, layers, understanding colours and a steady hand. Plus a big dose of artistics thrown in.

So. I selected one of my photographs for my first portrait. Here's how it went.

I used the grid to trace significant lines and positions. Took some time and in the end I noticed that I had been much too detailed. It would have been enough to just mark the most important places and "areas of shades": e.g. dark, medium and light. Anyway, this is what I ended up with and at this point it did not look good yet.

I then continued by adding first cool layers. I used Cobalt blue and Cobalt + Ultramarine. I did not have Phthalo blue but to my in-experienced eye, cobalt was ok. At this point I was happy with the first layers. Although I wasn't able to just add cool stain in the most meaningful places, the result was promising enough.

Then it was time for the first warm layers. I did not have a hake-brush but used the biggest brush I could find and wet the whole paper. Then catastrophe hit: the paper got very wrinkled and I didn't have time to add enough warm stains. Since the paper got so wrinkled, I didn't dare to wet it again so I ended up with this mess:

I thought I will continue, even though the paper was curvy and wrinkled. I added more warm layers using different shades of red (madder lake, cadmium light, english). I'm happy I had the courage to add a hint of violet to the cheek on the right side, although it looks a bit too rough.

Then I added more details and deepened shadow areas with violet and umbra. This is the point I was most happy with the painting. I should have stopped here.

Last step was to add final details. I made her eyes green, as they are in reality, added color to her lips (what, in my opinion, spoiled the shape of the lips and I was very disappointed), added white highlights to eyes and added background.

I had a major problem adding the background (phthalo blue and indigo). I had bought a hake-brush and this was the first time I used it. I did not make enough water/stain material and I ran out of paint when I was painting the background. I then tried to save it by adding more water and paper got wrinkled again and stain is un-even all over. I really hated it and as a sign of frustration, I violently painted a wide stroke of blue of the lower part of the portrait. Later I cooled down and said to myself: "Hey, this is just the first exercise. You'll be doing a lot more in days to come. Live and learn."