1st oil painting in Australia ever (process)

(cropped)

and i’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. so negatives first? This was something I started in at at 11.30 and it’s now 23.39, roughly 3 hr break thrown in the middle and around tea?

It’s not a true likeness, I haven’t at all considered the final background, all the features need major tweaking and this is not how I usually paint.

I’ve recently been reading Man With A Blue Scarf : On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud by Martin Gayford. Between that and a feeling that I only tend to push my art in one direction (a correlative increase in detail/idealism and abstraction) I should just full stop try a different style all the way to getting rid of my trademark blending. I just don’t know how I feel about it. It ages her for sure, is challenging in a different way on top of trying a new style, and just not sure if it’s as striking a piece as a blended out one would be. I don’t know.

I am proud of myself for pushing myself into something not only new but radically different (this might not seem so to non painters but it is - completely different ways of applying paint. Unlike popular conjecture I do not apply this much paint and then blend it all together - that would make mud.) I also think that for roughly a one day piece using my computer screen in a non-mess friendly work space I did alright.

I definitely think I took my insecurity with the painting out on others today (an especial gentleman who was pointing out the contrast between the face and the rest of the piece I really cracked it at so I’m sorry.)

I can just hear my mother stating how glad she is not to be living with me. I base my confidence and self worth almost entirely in my art so when it doesnt go to plan i get a bit insecure. and intolerable.

Also, might name it 'girl with a black earing' just because I like canon references that much.