"Heather"

[Mike McCarty]

First I have to explain to Morris about my pigeon spanish.

"Donde esta frijole cabrito?", translates to: "Where you bean kid?" Thinking you should come around more often.

Will,

You must be a late sleeper! I think your critique is at least as good as my painting.

About #1, This was a conscious attempt to give her a more flattering chin. Heather, although she has a beautiful face, has a bit of a saggy chin. This has been a question that has come up before on this forum as to whether we should make these little cosmetic adjustments. In this case I felt like the fault was partly mine because I selected the angle of the camera and had I been a little sharper I could have avoided showing the sag. After I made my attempt at the correction I felt like her likeness didn't suffer so I left it.

About #2, I don't have a very compeling excuse regarding the nose. I have worked it several times and it seems that even a very subtle misalignment can show to be a problem. One thing that I think exacerbates this is the fact that I have tried to keep everything very soft and avoid any hard edges. I think this makes it harder to exactly delineate fine details. Also the way the light has worked around the nose it has given one of those unnatural looks. I didn't know how to get around that.

About #3 and #4, I can see your point here and will take another look at those areas above her eyes.

About #5, I was pleased with her hair until I began to change the background. I then began to pick at it and now have it overworked. I think this is a hazard of reworking the background as I did. I like to do the hair in conjuction with the background to created the kind of edges that I like. I think it could have been ok, I just went to far. I'm now having trouble pulling out with my eraser.

As the one newly wed said to the other... we shall practice on each other.