New Lady (Mongolian)

After the previous grumpy girls, I decided to have another attempt at portraits, and chose this lovely, happy, enchanting lady from Mongolia. I did some research first on facial features and proportions, on skin colours and shadows. This took quite a while, and helped me understand what I was doing a bit better. But I seem to have ended up painting not really sticking to anything I had researched in any detail: more just feeling my way. I spent way too long on it, over worked it, struggled a lot with blending; but I had fun, and she always makes me feel better and brings a wee smile to my face.