Recent Photoshop Painting and my Nepal Sketchbook

Over Easter I went on an incredible mountaineering trip to Nepal, I spent 3 weeks with no modern technology trekking through (in my opinion) the most beautiful scenery in the world and climbing the Tharong La Pass (which is 5500m above sea level and a week of trekking away from civilisation). The only drawing materials I took with me was an A4 sketchbook, some mechanical pencils and a figure drawing book. Whilst I didn't draw anywhere near as much as I thought I would (after walking all day at altitude I was too tired to think straight) I still did a few sketches;

3 weeks with no computers, television or photoshop really improved my drawing. I had a 12 hour wait in Qatar airport on my way there and I stupidly filled up half my sketchbook with absent minded scribbles as I sat in the departures area. I then realised I was running out of paper on the third day so I had to be really picky with what I drew and the size that I drew as I tried to conserve paper. 

An old woman in one of the villages;

I haven't been doing as much photoshop painting recently as I'm spending more time learning modelling and trying to learn lighting theory, anatomy and colour theory so I can become an all round better artist. 

Here's a photoshop painting of a buddhist monk I did a few weeks ago, it was one of the first portraits I've done in photoshop without any reference. I wanted to use really rich, vibrant colours but first I did a black and white sketch to determine the values. 

With colours added; (click on the image to see it at a normal size)