Candle in the wind - A step by step

Here is a step by step of my painting dedicated to Marilyn Monroe.

I started by making a wash with clean water all over, a light wash of aureolin all over then:1: rewet the face area (but the eyes and mouth) and put a wash of aureolin Yellow

2:Let it dry then rewet and added some indian yellow to add depth

3:did the same with the neck, let it dry and put a light wash of indian yellow+alizarin crimson+ a tad of phtalo blue. Played with different quantities of these colors to add shadows to the shoulder area and to the right side of the face.

4:As I found it to be a little bit too yellow, I rewet all the skin area and applied a very faint wash of alizarin crimson

5: I masked the highlights in the eyes, mouth and earrings  and began working on the irises wetting them and putting some purple magenta and umb, as from the ref photo I saw a lot of purple and violet, and on the eyelids, putting some very pale violet hues there too.
I made a 1st wash for the neck shadow playing with alizarin, yellow and blue until I got the brown hue I liked. I also worked a bit more on light and shadows on the face, lifting where needed and trying to smooth things a bit

6:added a purple shadow on the left of her face that I quite didn't like, so this step was mainly lifting off and smoothing and darkening the shadow areas. I worked on the eyeliner, putting a reddish violet on the exterior side of the eyes blended into brown towards the inner part. Put a very light wash of umb on the white part of the eyes. added some aureolin yellow to the hair

7:Added some indian yellow to the hair. A clear water wash on the background, playing with hues of blue, pink violet and Winsor blue. Deepened the neck shadow and played more with the skin tones, added some brown mixed as above (on the cold side) for the eyeshadow and put a first wash of translucent orange on the lips

8:Worked more on the eyes adding the pupil and outer "ring" with indigo. Still worked on the skin, lifting highlights. Put a wash of scarlet red on the lips

9:worked more on skin and makeup.

10:Went wild with the background, I wanted a deep rich color that matched her eyes, so I put mixes of umb, winsor blue, winsor violet and stokes of Payne's gray over the color here and there. Refined the lips adding more scarlet red, purple magenta and quin gold on the lips to achieve a very rich warm red. added eyelashes with a very dark mix of blues and brown. Began the teeth gums with some translucent orange and alizarin crimson. Began working on the earrings with quin gold and indigo and brown.

11: Final painting. defined eyebrows, finished the mouth and teeth and painted the hair using cold (on the greenish side)and warm browns, adding some translucent orange to some of the sunlit areas and some quin gold where I felt hair needed more glow.