My painting project this week was the lovely Elizabeth Taylor. This was a bigger challenge than the last one; her face was fully in view, and my goal was to try to get a real likeness.

BTW, I hadn’t forgotten to paint– I was simply working on this piece a little bit at a time all week. I’m trying to slow down my process a little and try to realize take in all the details I need to paint. (That, and I had a ton of freelance work fall into my lap along with a terrible case of flu.)

So for the sake of your own morbid curiosity (and me trying to understand my own creative process as I tackle these), I present to you some rough sketches and paints leading up to the final at the very bottom.

My current plan of attack involves making 3-4 different rough sketches, hoping to nail it by with one of them. Looking back, I wish I would have picked the first one to paint from.

Still not perfect, but I know what I would do differently if I had to do it over again. Time to move on. This is mostly about practice and learning than perfection, right?