Love That Wraps Like a Vine

This is the mother of my mother, as known to everyone as my Grandmother. this painting only took me one week to complete, but I only worked on it for two actual school days. This was the first painting that I did that contained a person that wore obstructions on their face, so this was the hardest part to do for me. The background stands out the most because of the influence of the background-foreground illusion from the artist Kehinde Wiley, who paints portraits that are huge - about the size of a wall. The background was done with sponge and a point 3 brush.  The face was mostly done with a sea sponge also, but the highlights and deep-cut shadows were done with a medium 3 point brush. The shirt was the second hardest thing for me to complete because I was extremely hesitant about adding purple and blue to make shadows and folds in the cloth.  The light shadows on the shirt were down with yellows and white, then the highlights were just a lighter shade of that mixed yellow and white, or just white. I used the same concept on the earrings. This is my second painting of anyone other than me.