VEry pretty!

thanks for the nice comments, yes, this was from another pic taken in Jamaica

pretty

Nice! When you did the trees, were you 'dotting' them or did u use the scattering option? Love the fog effect!

I like the vibrancy in the colors you choose..

very lovely face. :)

Oh very nice! Love the color and your shading is so nicely done! Bravo!

Working this small on something with as many details as your photo would have is so difficult. There just isn't enough room to get a graduated shadow so you end up with the deep looking lines you mentioned. It's a good exercise in figuring out how to use your own judgment for how much detail to leave out. Lightening those lines worked well, I think.

IMpressive work :)

thanks doggonecutsy

I think you've gotten remarkably better since you've joined the site. I suggest you just keep practicing and draw more and more. If you'd like to expand your style, you can study the work of others, carefully analyze how they draw things, the brush strokes, the use of light, the color scheme, everything. Start out slow with easier types of paintings to try and work from. I've learned that if you start with hard pieces as references, no matter how determined you are, unless you've got the needed amount of skill, there's a good chance you'll just end up real unhappy and frustrated with your result. At least that's what happens to me. Challenging yourself can be good though. You could research some different styles of art, and do a painting for each. I should do that myself, I'd like to improve my work as well and work more out of my comfort zone. Like I said before though, you're improving quite a lot by the day, so I'm sure you've achieve your goals of expanding your style. =)