"Spring Hat" revisited

I finally broke down and added some much needed highlights my last April's "Spring Hat." Sometimes it's so difficult to revisit a work but in this case I knew sooner or later I would do what I am some of my fellow artists have encouraged me to do. Thanks to Connie for reminding me to be more conscious of the impact of the light especially on a portrait like this. The difficulty here lied in the fact that model photo had the the eyes almost completely in shadow and I wanted to change it. It's so difficult, if not impossible, to make up light and it seemed to me to be so synthetic to make to attempt. However, since I had changed the light on the eye are in the original work I was rather committed to doing it right and I hadn't done so. Here is my attempt to do it correctly if that's possible. I had to change the highlights in much of the face in order to balance things out and although it took me most of the day I think it was worth doing. I'm pleased with the result although I wouldn't want to have to repeat it.