Open Studio Tour Coming.

I am taking part in an open studio tour on the 19 and 20th of May.  That is giving me the motivation to refresh my studio space, so I have decided that new paint is in order.  Presently my studio/gallery is painted a great green that does compliment most artwork very well, but is a bit dark when working on portraits inside.  I think I will go with a more traditional gallery white so I can control my lighting more effectively.  You are invited to come out, see some new paintings, and inspect my renovation.  I will get the tour info up on my exhibits page. See http://studiotour.wordpress.com/ 
I am soldiering on with my portraits, so I'll share a few recent ones with you. . .

Here is Carol.  I am still painting in the same size but have flipped my canvas' into a vertical format.
This gives opportunity to try different compositions from what I have been working on in the horizontal.  This one is pretty straight forward.  I have placed Carol slightly off centre with pretty even light falling across most of her face.
I would describe this one as a high-key painting.  The shadowed areas are pretty high value with plenty of reflected light bouncing into them.
I chose to introduce some low value areas on each side of her face in order to accentuate her left earring  and balance the composition on her right side.

Torin is set up in artificial lighting because the outdoor lighting was too unreliable.  I really  do need a proper studio with plenty of north facing windows (whine, whine).
My subject  was a very patient sitter, so I was able to get my head into the final painting early on.  I wanted to introduce his hands as well as his casual posture.  I think it all hangs together pretty well.

Steve was a good sport on this one.  I really enjoyed working with him.  His tats have great significance for him, so I wanted to make them a big part of this piece.  I did have to respect the tattoo artist's copyright, so I kept things vague but recognizable to Steve.
The orange flesh hues are complimented by blue and violet/white in the background.  This thing really "pops".