"a post from charles": continuing steps in current painting

i am starting to get an idea of what the title might be for this piece. this may mnot be it but something close i think. perhaps a reference from within the letter itself: "he loves her raven hair" ????

folds /shadows on her dress: manganese blue,
 carmine, raw sienna

here are some of the intervening steps between when i last posted and now regarding this painting. again i will let the captions carry the day with the exception of one thought about the background. i am usually drawn to more organic shapes in the background of these but in this case there was going to be the more geometric shape of the pedestal table so i decided to break up the background into geometric shapes. its sort of taking a page from ted nuttall's playbook and i think works here better than my usual doodling.

starting shapes for background

darkening right background shape and
putting in pedestal table shape

close up of face at this stage

bringing everything up to value slowly

at the present time: probably finished with face and dress
just a little more on background to go.
i added red stripe on upper right for interest and balance.