Oil portrait/landscape

Soooo...I'm working on my first portrait in about 15 years. Oye. I used to do a lot of watercolor portraits for people, but oil...nada. This will be interesting. I'm completely and utterly unsure of how this will turn out, if it turns out at all.

Weird

A little "extremely sick with a disease and fading fast."

Sort of, kind of starting to look...eh...human?
This is my niece-in-law, if there is such a thing. I'm sure there is. This is Shannon and she has the most amazing bone structure. I found this photo on her Facebook page and really wanted to give it a go. The background in the photo is grassy farmland but in my painting, Shannon will end up in a boat with a body of tropical water behind her and island-y hills in the distance.

If you've ever watched a portrait artist doing an oil on You Tube, you know that there's about 50-75% of the time when you say, "Ugh, looks like crap. That is NOT going to work out in the end." But somehow it does. Well, this isn't like that. Because honestly, I'm not sure it's going to work out in the end! At the moment it is at least progressing and the bones of it looks like it's coming along. I need to make some changes but I won't lead you down that merry road of wondering what I'm going to try to fix.

If it doesn't work out..we'll never speak of it again. Shhh.