Painting: Turneras de los Muertas p2

Continuing from yesterday, the next steps were to really work on the detail of the individual faces.  I spent a lot of time on each one, not painting anyone else while devoted to a single person.  I started with the daughter and the childlike features were easiest to capture.

 It's not fully evident here, but I painted the face fully without makeup before going in to add the Muertos designs

I spent a lot of time trying to get the Dad's teeth right.  What I learned here is that mouths are pretty hard. Thankfully, this project was more of a caricature than an accurate portrayal.

The biggest challenge here was to get my friend JUST right.  I ended up here after a night of working on it, and I was SO pleased with how realistic the woman in the painting looked. However, it took me a day to really understand WHY the woman in the painting did not exactly look like my friend.

So, I painted over it until I got it right.  Or at the very least, better:

After THAT correction, it was just a matter of applying her makeup..

"Turneras de los Muertas": Acryllic on 16x20 Canvas Board
Marianne Bjelke 2013

 I am pleased to say that they liked their portrait very much, and I had a lot of fun making it!