Trying a Watercolor Portrait

A couple weeks ago, Nancy and I met with a friend to sketch him. He is a very good model. He sat very still. I did three attempts. In the first attempt I liked the the eyes and the beard, in the second, I liked the hair, and in the third I thought I came closest to capturing his likeness. I tried three times to upload the pencil sketches, but each time they just showed up as a blur.

Today I tried sketching a composite of the three in my foreign language repurposed sketch book and used watercolor to finish it.

I don't love it, but I think it is not all bad. I think I want to try more portraits with watercolor, but make by colors more varying in tone. I think when it dries I need to add a bit more beard and inside ear to clarify. Do you think I should work at it with a fine line black pen? or leave it alone?

I've been glued to the tv watching tennis and was thrilled both when Ana beat Serena and when Radwanska beat Azarenka. So looking forward to watching the Li Na/Eugenie Bouchard match and then the Cibulkova/Radwanska match. From here it looks like it is anybody's trophy to win.

What have you been up to? 

xoxo