Hey Morgan, this was fun. I tried following along with you as you painted: when you massed in the cheek, I massed in the cheek, when you massed in the hair, I massed in the hair, etc. I was surprised to see how much you "left out" when massing. Much different than the ateliers I studied at where we used tiny brushes and rendered from shadow to light in one big smoothed out gradation, trying to capture as much surface detail as possible as we went. I don't have any flat brushes (other than bristles, which I didn't use). It was all filberts and the smaller ones were rounds. I think I could use some flats. Part of me likes it, part of me hates it. Not sure. When I try painting more loosely like this, I end up confused and thinking it doesn't look "impressionistic realism" I love, but think it looks more like someone who is trying to paint realism but can't figure out how to render. I don't know.

I remember after watching the Peter Pan or Tarzan VHS tape, a little "behind the scenes" would play at the end and it was a lot like this, watching the characters being constructed out of 3d shapes & cross contours while the animators made commentary, they made it look so easy. If you are reading this comment, you probably loved those Disney BTS scenes that played after the movie.

The principles discussed here demonstrate exactly why AI should not be illustrating children's books.

I cropped my reference because I only had a 10x10 Panel. I may not be using enough paint because when I go back to smooth an edge with a finger or clean brush it picks up paint and just makes a streaky thin area rather than a smooth edge.

I had to call it on this before it was finished. I made the composition too small so it was very difficult to add details to the eyes. Once all my premixed paint dried up I decided I would just move on to the next assignment.

I regret setting this up on such a small paper (11x15) shooting to finish the whole thing tonight so that I'm not dealing with tacky paint tomorrow or the next day.

There are some issues with this, the paint was getting tacky by the time I applied the last layer, so working edges didn't go as planned. However this is still the best thing I've ever painted and I am so excited to start on Annie!

As I post this I can see the left side of the forehead is too light so I know that's what I'll go into on the next session. I have never painted anything this good and painterly, I am so excited about what I am learning in this course. Thank you!!!!

The harsh edge on the cheek is so tempting to blend out but I'm sticking rigidly to the instruction (which is usually hard for me). Even though it's late, I'm going to watch the next lesson to see if the 2nd layer needs to be done while the 1st layer is still wet.

I did this digitally because I don't have a printer.