Finished Memory Portrait

This is my finished Memory Potrait of my younger sister Kate. I decided to do it in gouache for two reasons: 1. I am not as familiar with gouach as I am watercolor so I decided this would be another good opportunity to use it and 2. I have more gouache than I do watercolor. Especially the brown and ocre color. I'm almost out of those colors in watercolor from doing all the landscapes.
When I started, I didn't really have a technique in mind other than I was going to start with the lightest values and build up to the darkest. And each layer was put on by spreading it over the whole area for the most part, and then going back in with a wet brush to find the shape of ther face and other quailaties. I used a lot of water over the whole thing - I like the texture it made. I was originally going for a sepia toned color scheme because of her big golden brown eyes and her rich brown hair, but now it's sort of a distressed sepia. I like it, and I was able to work rather quickly. I spent a little more time on her eye because that's the feature I wanted to highlight the most.