Karate!
 

This is a 16" x 20" oil on canvas board study in preparation for a 34" x 16" painting. I felt a study would be valuable in resolving the different passages and their treatments. This allows me to be a little more daring before the real thing starts.

This is the composition photo.

Your biggest challenge here will be to sublimate the gi and make the boy the subject. If you squint at the photo, the gi is everything, in lights and darks, and the boy's head disappears against the background. You won't have a successful portrait if you take that lead. Consider cropping this just below the boy's hands, and figure out how to enhance the boy's head and facial features. Certainly eliminate the horizontal lines across the piece behind him.

A very good point indeed. I am counting on the content of his expression to get around that. It is a gamble.

3 hours into it...

...update.

...8 hours into it.

...

Wonderful painting! I love the energy you maintain with careful forethought.

To aid in bringing more attention to the face, I would go even lighter in the background so that the greatest contrast is at his hair (on left side of canvas). Some of the clothing could then have lost edges to the background in the area of his right shoulder. The shadow side is delicious already!

I agree that his expression will hold the viewer!

...13 hours.