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Ohhhh, sheeeeeeesh!!! Yes!!!I hate most of my earlier work, even of recent times. Most of the work I am doing now in oil is practice. I ran across a portrait much like this one, of a man and wife who were older, and the photo was high contrast. They were both scowling and overweight. I tried to paint it from a photo by sight, with no aids of transfer or trace. I photographed it and sent it off, and the customer graciously paid for it. Now I can't understand why they accepted it. It was truly awful. I had alot of subtle mistakes that really stood out to me in retrospect. I will never make the mistake again of painting an oil portrait and trusting only my eye. There is too much at stake, both in terms of their long term appreciation of my work, their investment, and my reputation. Why chance it? I know I can draw, I have nothing to prove. But I will never make an oil painting again without transfering it from a photo to guarantee to myself that it is accurate in the layout. And, in a photo like yours, there are very subtle dangers that can be avoided by sticking strictly to the photo in terms of pose, lighting and color.
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