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Wow! I was very surprised to see all these replies when I looked at this thread this morning. I woke up feeling kind of cranky but all these encouraging responses have made my day...and I will try to ruminate on them as long as I can.
Alexandra - I still think that flaws are flaws particularly if they're unintentional. I doubt there is anyone that can paint without any flaws (although some of the stuff I've seen here comes pretty darn close)- the severity of the flaw is what matters, I suppose. In this case, the flaws are nasty enough to warrant fixing. I think the opinions of others should sway me to at least see problems where I don't. There is lot of stuff I've done in the past that my own eyes were incapable of objectively critiquing. With fresh eyes, I look back now in shock at the problems I didn't see then.
Chris - I'm delighted that you like and appreciate what I've done here! I agree the process of doing a self-portrait from life is VERY hard. I've done several but I think this may be the most difficult for me due to the masochistic approach I have taken. First, I arranged my lighting environment to be quite unstable - where every slight tilt of my head would alter values and colours fairly significantly. Second, I did this life size using a mirror that sits next to my canvas on my easel. In hindsight, I should have sat as far back from the easel as I could have but what I ended up doing was moving my head back and forth between mirror and canvas, either painting the memory of what I last saw or painting the image I see on a canvas that is off to my left.
Michele - Thanks!
Marcus - I'm honored by what you've said and how you expressed it!
Garth - I've been admiring the quality of your portraits quite a bit on this forum so your words mean a great deal to me - thanks!
Terri - Thank you!
Lisa - Thanks a lot. I'll try to get a close up later on since the digital image doesn't show the texture, particularly for the lighter areas.
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