Portrait of a girl

Objective: Draw a full-size portrait of another person. The portrait must be from the waist or mid-chest up, and they must have their chest area draped with a fabric of some sort (not a shirt or suit). This will allow you to concentrate on their faces, their features, their surroundings, and still have some areas to work into shape, form, mass, and texture if possible.

I have began this portrait as a black and white (graphite pencil and compressed charcoal), but as I progressed and drew the eyes I felt the urge to convert to color. I colored the eyes, the lips and the skin, then the background and finally the clothing. On this drawing I decided to work from left to right as working with charcoal and chalk pastels can be very messy (I wanted to eliminate as much dust as possible). I was really inspired by the beauty, innocence, and charisma of this girl, and drew and idealized portrait of her. Drawing her was really a pleasure.