A Portrait in Progress as of December 6

A Portrait in Progress as of December 6
Originally uploaded by randubnick.

Today I made some changes to the portrait I am painting for my friends. I shortened the nose and the chin slightly to get the proportions right and improve the likeness. You can still see strong shadows where I made changes; I still need to lighten those areas because the shadows make the features look too sharp. Tomorrow I plan to reduce the size of the chin just a bit more. At this point, I try to keep the changes I make to between 1/16 and 1/4 of an inch at a time, because small changes make it easy to follow the lines that are already there, and also make it easy to reverse a change if I make a mistake. In a portrait, everything is related to everything else. A major change in once place can start a domino effect, so I move slowly and carefully. But small changes are important in a portrait, so it is worth the effort to try to get it right.