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I've been fighting the same portrait for two weeks now and specifically the nose. Eleven times. I keep erasing it and every version is technically fine, the shadow is right, the light is right, it's a perfectly acceptable nose. And it is not HER nose. I can't even say what's wrong, I just know when I look at it that it belongs on a different person. The funny thing is nobody else can see it. I showed a friend and she said it looks lovely. And I thought, good, so I'm just crazy. But then I looked again and it's still not her nose. I think this is the part of portraiture nobody warns you about. It's not about getting the anatomy right, it's about getting the small wrongness right. The exact degree of crooked that makes a face a face. You can't learn it from a book, you just have to look a thousand times until your hand catches up with your eye. Anyway I'm on attempt twelve tonight. Wish me luck. Or tell me you know this feeling so I feel less insane.

Found a self-portrait I did in 2019 while clearing out storage. Before I had any idea what I was doing, before I'd even touched oil. Just charcoal and sheer desperation. It's rough as hell, the anatomy is all wrong, but I keep staring at it because the eyes are honest in a way I can't fake now. I've gotten so much "better" and I'm not sure better is the same thing as truer. Been thinking about that all day. Do I still paint like the person who made that? I honestly don't know and it's kind of eating at me.

I delivered a small piece last week, 20x25cm, torn pages from a 1930s French anatomy book, just three elements on a pale ground. Charged €250. The gallery sells my work at €480 and takes 50%, so I got €240. It took me 14 hours because I kept scrapping it and starting again. That's about €17 an hour before materials. I know the math is bad. Objectively I know. But I also know I wouldn't have made it faster if I'd rushed. The quiet part is I'm not sure I want to work faster. I want to sit with a piece until it's right. That's the whole point of doing this. I don't know what to do with that. Raise the price and risk the gallery dropping me? Accept that collage is a loss leader for a life I'd be living anyway?