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Natalie, Sargent only used that many sittings as a young man with no commissions lined up. Eight to ten sittings for men and ten to fourteen for women. An early example of a brother and sister is said to have taken 90 + sittings but this was never the case after about 1887. Lady Agnew of Locknaw (one of the greatest in my mind) was 6 sittings.
As Schmid says, eventually you stop turning out the 'turkeys'. It just means that your mistakes are personal short-comings rather than technical ones. But this requires painting a lot until it becomes as speech. You never think about sentence structure when you begin a sentence but somehow it is correct.
Most people rarely paint as often as they speak and often don't start out with a good enough teaching in painting structure. They repeat their insufficient fundamentals until they are habit, just as poor sentence structure. Him and I, ain't, ekcetera ... all sound normal to the person speaking. Poor painting structure is the same and should always be examined in the fundamentals to find the real problems.
Sorry 2 am, probably rambling. Hoping we all paint inspired and with humility.
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