STUDIES oilpaint after a painting of Bartner

I started a project for the Summer months to practise with oilpaint and most of oil with color.
So I took a beautiful photo of a painting of Scott E. Bartner
It is such a beautiful detailed portrait.
I took 4 canvasses of 20x20cm and transferred a drawing on them with black ink.
The first one I made it in a warm black/grey/white= Ivory black, raw umber and flake white. The three tiny highlights on the tip of the nose and in the eyes are Titianwhite. I love Flake white, it is not so harsh like Titian.
I took 3 photos of the painting process and here they are.
The first photo on top was disappointing, the white was absorbed and the picture became far too dark.
I shrubbed the paint into the canvas.

 The second photo: I added more white paint and light grey tones and added more details

 Still not satisfied. Too much oneven coloring and tones.
So I mixed a big pile of the Ivory black and Raw Umber, flake white and 7 or 8 mixes grey with it, so I would get the same mix of paint (color and tone) everywhere.
And now she is finished.

And then to practise with color I started 3 canvases with different color backgrounds and different approaches.
The one on the left I put as a backgroundcolor a medium tone fleshcolor on it.
The middle canvas stayed white and I used Ivory black and Titian  for the first layers, still a lot of work has to be done.
The portrait on the right I put as a background color Ocre (Oker)
I added some color to the drawings but I found the colors too harsh, too much, so I mixed a very light fleshcolor with flake white and this almost transparant paint I painted it over the whole portrait to mute it a bit..
Not the background though. On the background I added some color.
THIS IS A GREAT ADVENTURE