Marissa paints watercolors and more....: Chris & Lily, new custom portrait step by step

So here is my latest portrait, dad and baby daughter that show joy and love.
The challenge here was the dad, and giving him a "manly" appearance compared to the radiosity and freshness of Lily.
So here we go.....

Here I began the background, working both wet into wet and wet into dry to get texture on the tiles.

Working on the tiles, adding dry brush strokes.

I used some wax resist here and there, for texture's sake

Working glaze after glaze, I added some indian yellow for warmth, and some white to mimic the veins of the stone.

Masking fluid off the grouts, and began giving shadows.

Let's start the faces with the underpainting of aureolin yellow and indian yellow. I first wet the area and when the shine from the paper begins to disappear, I apply the pigments. Paper still wet in this photo.

3rd wash of yellows. It's beginning to have tridimensionality.
Working on the faces requires lots of patience, no rush here!

I mixed my skin tones, I will use these colors from now on, varying the amount of this or that color to get the hue I need.

This is the first glaze of skintone, I avoid the highlight areas and work with lost and found edges.

This is the alien stage.....I added some translucent orange to Lily's face to give, well, translucency.... :)

Working on the skin.....I also added some grayed down UMB to the eyes.
The gray dots you see is masking fluid, to preserve light where the droplets will be.

Beginning to shape dad's eyes, using phtalo blue and indigo.
I also started to paint his hair.

Deepened the eyes' color, and slowly building up the skin....some more color where the hair will be.

In order to work on smaller areas, in addition to the glasses I always wear, I cannot do without this magnifying glass I bought many years ago to do miniature cross stitch........that's when my sight began to get worse...

now that I've been working more on the skin and eyes, it's time to tackle the mouths....and the droplets!!!!

Still working on the skin, Lily's fine hair, shadows and lips. Did Lily's eyelashes, that must give the impression of being wet. Working on the eyebrows.

Working on hair and lips. I slightly grayed down the teeth, because leaving them white would not give a naturale effect.

More work on the hair, darkened the angles of the mouth. The contour of the hair is too harsh so I will need to work more on this.

Working my way through, going darker on the shadows and on the hair.
I also gave a dark wash on the jaw, to give the impression of cut beard.

These are the colors I used for the "beard". They are mostly granulating colors, as I also need texture. In addition to this, once the color was applied to the area, I sprinkled over some fine jojoba beads in order to get even more texture.

Still working on the "beard" and hair

As the background was too similar to the skin tones, I decided to turn them greenish, to give more contrast and definition.
In order to achieve this, I glazed over them with cerulen blue, then sap green, and finally quin gold. Working on the droplets as well.