The portrait on my easel has been through four jaws now. Not the whole face, just that one line from ear to chin, and each time I lift it off with a kneaded eraser and start again I tell myself this is the last time.

The third attempt was the good one. I know because I looked at it the next morning before I'd had coffee, and it read properly, that slight heaviness under the jaw where the light turns. Then I decided the shadow was too cold and went over it. It's grey now. Flat. The bone has gone out of it and I can see the paper starting to give where I've worked it, that slight shine you get on Canson when you've been at one spot too long.

So I'm not asking how to fix it, I know I need to leave that area alone and put the shadow back with a light touch of a warmer stick. What I want to know is whether anyone else does this, going back into the one part that already works. Because I do it constantly and I have started to think it is not perfectionism, it is that I don't trust that the good version was mine. Like I got lucky for ten minutes and I need to prove it by ruining it.

Anyway. New sheet tomorrow, I think. This one has had enough of me.