Tunisian Girl - Work in Progress

"A Tunisian Girl," colored pencils WIP digital effects

This is the piece I have on my drawing board right now. Her inspiration is a photo from the late 19^th or early 20^th centuries. The image is from a glass plate negative, I think. I have no idea who she was, but I’m calling her “A Tunisian Girl” for lack of a better title. My medium is colored pencils on medium-toned Canson paper. I’m using a limited palette, just a few colors, to give the final piece the soft, faded look.

A long time ago I worked in a darkroom as a photo-restorer. (This was well before Photoshop.) We made prints, bleached them, bathed them in various tints, hand-colored them...the works! Sometimes, I miss those old days of restoring horrible, old prints found in some shoe box in an attic. 

Today, it's easy to take a piece of artwork and make it look old. That's what I've done here. Just for fun, I’ve added old-timey digital photo effects to my half-finished portrait. 

I'll post the final piece when she's finished.