Another portrait in Payne's Grey

I decided to try another monotone portrait in Payne's Grey on grey-toned paper tonight, again with a little bit of blush added. I used for my reference a picture I had saved from a friend's photography shoot, excerpting only the mother's head out of the family photo of she and her husband and two daughters. I particularly liked the angle of her head, and that she was looking down through almost-closed lids.

I didn't get the angle of the head quite extreme enough, and thus the eyes were also harder to get right—it should look as if she's looking down, but I'm not sure she doesn't just look like her eyes are closed. I considered putting some whites in there, but they really don't show at all in the photo, so...no.

I also tried a mixed media thing that didn't really come off. I used some Daler Rowney Shimmering Green ink as a background, and apart from tinting the grey card faintly darker and giving a slicker surface, you can't even tell it's there, which is disappointing; the shimmering gold ink pops on this surface and I thought the green would do the same.

I was pretty happy with the texture I achieved for her sweater, which was a tedious process.

Addendum to post: I woke up at 5:30 and decided to mess with her, so I put in a background coat of pearlescent white ink over the green. Then I took a stiffer watercolor brush (I had been working with my swishy Silver) and amped up some of the darks in eyes, brows, lips, and shadows, and reiterated some of the wispy hairs that had gotten blurred out by the white. I also tweaked the directionality of the eyes. I think it's an improvement...although it shows more in person than in this scan.

"Mother Love"—pencil, Payne's Grey watercolor, and Daler Rowney Pearlescent White ink on grey-toned smooth 184-lb. mixed media paper, 9x12 inches.