The oil is a detail of the figure on the left from the study of three women I've been working on- I think I'll start calling her "the salter". I worked on this figure yesterday and after working for hours, painting and repainting the head this is where I ended up. As you can see I pretty much wiped out, or, to use a euphemism, "remassed it". I posted this image last night and then took it down because I was so unhappy about it.

So today, instead of spending another day in frustration trying to paint the features out of my imagination, I decided to do a study on paper using myself as a model. Modeling involved setting up three mirrors so that I could draw myself without having the eyes looking straight out at the canvas. It wasn't easy to set up the mirrors; I would have given up in frustration if Tom, my husband and fellow artist, hadn't come along and helped. Also, looking at myself in a raking light, with no makeup and my hair pulled back in an unflattering way was a shock to the system. But I put those dreary thoughts aside, drew for four or five hours and was pretty happy with the result. In fact I forgot all about my looks so happy was I to be drawing in a good light with a model I didn't have to chat with- or pay!