WIP Painting: Random internet portrait

I've been drawing in sketchbooks and in the margins of my notebooks since before I was in highschool, but I didn't pick up a paintbrush until the start of this year, when for some reason I decided I'd figure out oil painting. I started by painting on scraps and in cheap sketchbooks, before getting some canvas panels and starting to make what I consider 'finished' paintings. I'm seeing my own progress over the year, and honestly I'm really pleased with it.

Something that I don't have much experience with, and still need a lot of work on, is the portrait. I want to get better at portraits. The colours are subtle, the value shifts are difficult to get your head around, and mixing the paint is a challenge. It's a constant struggle to not overblend or lose the paint strokes. My attention is having to work overtime to keep confident brush strokes and to avoid a muddy mess. But, as with other paintings I've worked on, I've been enjoying the process.

Still, it's easy to lose the vision when it feels like the painting is in the ugly stage. I find myself wanting to work into it over and over, when I know I should be carrying on with the unpainted bits first - one lesson I have learned this year is that it's impossible to see how the painting really looks until you've at least covered the background.

The reference for this painting is from some lost corner of the internet, collected I think years ago and the origin is long lost. I won't share it here because I can't credit the source.