Stella’s background & Eyes appear as the sky is washed in. Close-up branches hold out white reserved areas. Behind the bush, you can see a horizon line and field. I have also lightly washed in the shadows on Stella’s face to help show some 3D features.
Stella’s Eyes
Stella’s eyes are her best expressive feature to me. I work them in with golden brown and green with some spots of purple for darkening emphasis. Darkening shadows around them with blues and some purple. The sky behind is also darkened.
The next step in this process is to add a brown collar. I have to be very careful to reserve the white for the metal on her collar. A shiny metal area is one of the trickiest surfaces to render, it requires abrupt edges going from stark white to black. It is really important to ensure that I don’t screw up the whites as I adjust things around them.