Jan. 12: A most hopeful giraffe, and knowing when to stop

I painted this little guy while listening to President Obama's State of the Union speech. I think he looks rather hopeful.
I couldn't find my black paint, so I used a very dark purple. I was looking around for the actual name of that color (purple dioxazine!) when I stumbled on this Acrylic Painting for Dummies cheat sheet, It turns out that I did a good thing, totally by accident, when I didn't use the black paint for this. I'm happy with the result.
I gave him a bottom lip, which, when you look at the original photo, you can't see. In the photo, it makes perfect sense; his actual face is longer and pointier. But when I painted him, that nose and mouth area turned out rounder (I seem to have that problem ... making things rounder than they are). It looked wrong to me without that little suggestion of the bottom half of his mouth, so I chickened out and added an extra line.
I was going to do more with the background, but once I was happy with the giraffe, I was afraid to tamper with it anymore. So there is a straight vertical pale gray patch behind him that I didn't intend to leave there.
However, I remembered my father saying, "Sometimes, art is about knowing when to stop."