Striped Reality

I found Christina's art not very long ago. I myself am trying to learn how to do portraits, so of course her work had my interest right away, even before I knew what a wonderful person she was.
This particular piece, I found to be very amazing. To do this subject would be very daunting to me, particularly to get the bars of shadow and light to look right. But Christina pulled it off beautifully!
The texture and detail is phenomenal. It is very intense and emotional. I know she referenced a photo, but I feel she enhanced the emotion and gritty feel that is appropriate to the image and subject itself. In that sense, it is an improvement over the photo, which is a difficult thing to achieve. That is the trick to a portrait like this in my opinion...Unless it is for the sake of exercise, one might think, "why not just do a photocopy?' But Christina made a portrait here, that is better than the photo, great as it was. That is the sign of an exceptional talent.
I would have given full marks on everything, but I took off just a bit on vision and originality, just because it was using the photo. But I could not give less than 4.5 stars, because she did so well at making this have even more impact than the photo.
Christina, you are awesome! <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/h/h…" width="15" height="13" alt="" title="Heart"/>