Book Study - Gesso & Magazine Images

On NGS group we are doing a study of Bernie Berlin's book "Artist Trading Card Workshop", and this week we're doing the section on "Gesso and Magazine Images". Bernie says this is a wonderful exercise for those intimidated by facial studies for paintings or drawing. The magazine image is used as a guide, allowing you to get feel of drawing a face.
Cut out a magazine image and adhere to a card base. Lightly paint gesso over the image using a dry brush and a crosshatch motion. This softens the image, while allowing you to still see the image.
I added more gesso to the images I did not want to show through on my card.

After the gesso dries, use a fine-point pen or marker to define the area you want to bring out. Add extra details to the image and background that you desire.

I used acrylic paints to fill out the image and background:

When the paint dried, I re drew the lines with a thicker marker. Then added the other details to finish the ATC.