Should have this finished soon...

I'm putting a transparent layer of cobalt blue on the smaller boys shorts, and quinacridone gold on the others. Then a bit of lifting of highlights with a clean damp brush and I think that part is done. The shadows have knocked back and become part of the local color. I've defined the eyes and facial features some more and indicated the patterns on the shirts on top of yesterdays shadows, without too much detail, I have to watch myself constantly to not get bogged down in finicky details. Now I have to think about making sense out of the background next.

A watercolor work-in-progress

I'm beginning a commision piece about 20x22" of these cute little boys, Ben & Lucas. I selected this photo as a reference out of a couple dozen I took while they played on our swing.

Here is the preliminary pencil drawing..(the lines are darkened by the contrast button on Picasa, they're really not this dark)

I've lightly penciled in all the major light and shadow areas to guide me.

First an all over wash of skin tone made of new gamboge and cadmium red.

It starts to look scary at this point with the underlying colors going in. Putting in some greens to kill that white background will help.