oil painting round 2 and sad still lifes

For one of my college portfolios they asked that i paint them 2 things, a still life and an observational painting. I really don't like still lifes so i decided to get that one out of the way first.
I grabbed some acrylic paints, mostly my usual blues and reds and i set up a still life. I had one bottle, a cup and lots of flowers. I went for the more classical "i want this to be easy and to get this out of the way" approach. 
I started by painting the bottle, and used lots of dark blues and lots of whites, for contrast.  Then i painted the cup a bluish gray, pretty simple stuff.
By the time i got to the flowers i was really ready to be done, i globbed lots of paint on their, adding purples reds and yellows. i put the purples in the darker spots, and yellows for highlights. I actually really like the texture in the flowers.  I added a few shadows on the ground and put some more yellows and reds in the bottle and cup (to help lead your eye across the painting a little more) and ta da!!

 

now here comes the fun part, the observational painting! I knew i didn't want to paint a face, so i got my friend to pose for me in fetal position, covering her face 

 

i started by mixing gray to blue to make a really bright blue that popped. Then i mixed my oils together to create and orange esk skin color. i added purples for the shadows and blues for the highlights, similar to what i did in my last oil painting. 

 

i needed to work on the shape more, especially in the legs. so i smoothed those out and i added more of a curve in the back. i darkened up her stomach and added more highlights in the shoulder and texture in the leg. 

 Then i added the hair i used a black for the base and added a light bluish purple for the highlights.

 

Then mrs rossie pointed out the lines on the highlight of the shoulder were too strong and my brush strokes needed to be folowing the shape of her arm, not going against it. 

 

So i did, and i added more highlights to the hair and added dark spots in the background for intrest.

Not a whole lot of meening behind this painting, but i love how it turned out. I am very proud of what i have created and for once i create art that was actually pleasing to look at! I am very happy with this piece, and i am happy i got to learn more about using oil paints.