After completing a line drawing I then mixed up my palette.

Pink can be a rather evasive colour to replicate. In my experience, a small amount of yellow added to a pink will result in a further shade of pink.

I mixed a range of purple brown colours for the velvet dress, and skin tones using ultramarine blue and scarlet as my base mix. To some of that mix, I added a burnt sienna.

I started by painting the head bow, using my different pinks and working from light to dark. I painted the dot pattern over the pink colours when they were 100% dry, using part of my mix for the velvet.

I painted the skin tone on the face, hands and neck using a very very weak wash of my mix. When that was dry I added further stronger tones of the colour to give 3d effect to the hand, the right hand cheek on the face and the shadow on the neck.

I painted the lipstick and nail varnish using a scarlet red. I used a light wash of ultramarine blue for the eye. For the eyebrow and lashes, I used a medium tone of my brown mix for the dress.

I then started painting the dress. I worked from light to dark, applying the weakest wash I could make of my base colour for the first wash. I worked in glazes, where you let each wash dry 100% before applying the next one. All the washes I added, I was gradually increasing in tone, so the ratio of paint to water was increasing for each wash, until the final wash was really a mix of colour. I left the lightest tone to show through to replicate the light playing in velvet material.

I painted the necklace and bracelet using lemon yellow initially, then over painting with yellow ochre, whilst the lemon was still damp. I then used my dress mix base colour for the shapes on the jewellery. I painted the surface of the table in the foreground with a light wash of my dress base colour too.