Thinking this morning about a portrait I’m doing and how I’ve been really questioning “is it any good?”, which is the wrong question but seems so easy to ask and obsess about. My friend Jayne used a phrase last night about having had ‘time on the mat’, experiential knowledge of painting and drawing, as her way of putting the fire out or providing some perspective on the situation. I think this conversation has led me to a thought that portraiture is just a different sort of painting problem, and brings with it other things to resolve, a likeness for example, but it also needs to contain the things and qualities that exist in my other work.

Maybe I am immediately jumping to “is it any good?” question because its hard to ask if its a ‘successful painting’ which requires self knowledge to answer.