Painting a Portrait, Part 1

I'd love to show a painting in progress and the steps I take to complete a painting. So here we go....

These are two new paintings that I have started and they are in the underpainting stage. Basically, I drew the images out with pencil and then mixed cerulean blue, alizaren crimson, and ultramarine blue with white (i used flake white this time) and thinned out the mixture with my solvent- I use Turpenoid Natural. I tend to use more of the blues for shadows and a more reddish purple for the highlights, but generally, the mixture gives me an indigo lavender underpainting. For me, this helps the skin look more realistic after I apply the upper layers of paint.