My Most Recent Painting

Here is the painting I finished this week:

I already had a pair of matted, framed pictures from when I staged our house for sale last summer. The pictures were close-up photographs of dandelions in a kind of a grey scale. I liked them okay, but Matt did not, so I decided to paint over the dandelion papers. I haven't decided what to do on the second one yet.

I'm not 100% thrilled with the outcome, mostly of the shape of the kid's face and left hand, but it was my first time painting a person so all things considered it could be worse. I like the shading of the kid's outfit.
I used this photograph, which I found on Pinterest, as my guide:

It would have been nice to have been into painting when I was in school so I could have taken art class or lessons or something. I guess it's not too late, but, since I'm just doing it for fun and relaxation it's also not really necessary.