The same face ten times and still not the one I'm chasing
I've spent this whole week on the same young woman's portrait, and I mean the same one, over and over. Nine versions on the easel now, taped to the wall like some kind of confession. Every time I get the eyes almost right and something else collapses, usually the mouth. Her lips are not expressive exactly, just slightly parted, and I cannot for the life of me get that to stop looking like hesitation.
My partner keeps saying he can't even tell them apart, which I think is meant to be reassuring. It is not reassuring.
But today the tenth one, I don't know what changed. Maybe I stopped trying so hard. The smudge on her cheekbone that I've been fighting all week just... stayed. And it's the one. The one I meant all along.
So of course now I'm already scared I'll never do it again. That's the thing nobody warns you about. The good ones feel like accidents you didn't earn.
Anyway. Leaving it up overnight. Not touching it till morning, that's the rule I never keep. Wish me luck. 🙂
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I understand that week. There's a point where the reference stops being useful and you're just wrestling with your own hand, and every attempt gets further from what you saw in the first place.
I know the mouth problem too. With paper I can't repaint, so I get one chance, and I've learned the lips are the last thing to touch, not the first. The face reads as a whole until the mouth lands. When I force it early it comes out tight, like the person is waiting for something.
What changed in the tenth one, do you know? Was it that you stopped trying to make her look a certain way, or that you finally just drew what was there?
Also your partner's not wrong, even if it's useless to hear. The difference between nine and ten is for you. It's a private thing.
Now that's a good question you put to them, and I hope they answer it. That thing about the reference stopping being useful, that's real. It's the same with cloth. I can look at a picture or a memory all day, but there comes a point where my hands have to take over or I'm just copying, and copying never quite gets the life in.
And you're right about the mouth. I never thought of it as the last thing to touch but you've got it exactly. A mouth that lands too early sits there waiting on the rest of the face to catch up, and it shows.
I'd like to know about the tenth one myself. Sometimes it's not that you stopped trying, it's that you finally got out of your own way and let the work tell you what it wanted to be. That's the part you can't plan for, and you can't force it, and you can't explain it either. You just have to be grateful when it comes.
The cloth comparison makes so much sense, I hadn't connected those two things but you're right, they're the same fight. It's like the reference is a good friend that eventually just gets in the way.
And yes, the mouth thing is exactly that. Like it's sitting there judging everything else before it's done.
The tenth one, I think I finally stopped asking the photo what to do and just let the pastel find the shape by itself. Her lips still aren't quite what I saw, but they stopped looking like hesitation. That was enough for today. 🙂
The lips last thing to touch, that's going to live in my head now. I've been treating it like the feature that needs the most taming, so of course I always start there and tighten everything around it. Tight is exactly the word. The tenth one I think I finally let the whole face sit soft and loose and the mouth just... happened at the very end. I didn't even plan it, I was putting the pastel down almost without looking because I was so done with the whole thing.
And the reference thing, yes. I had her photo up for so long I started drawing the screen, not her. The tenth one I turned it off. That's probably what it was, more than any skill. Hard to admit the answer was just... putting the thing away.