Christmas Portrait Commission

This is the beginning sketch of one of the Christmas portraits that I am working on. It will be a gift for an unsuspecting girlfriend ;)

The sketch is lighter in reality but I made it darker so it can be seen online. I transfered the sketch to the watercolor paper to avoid damaging the paper's surface.

I do not usually do this much detail at the sketch stage but as I have been doing more paintings lately I thought I would approach this portrait the same way and see how it goes :)