![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWAkySuA1P3Ur4CV5YjDWRgt1fJ9hetaK_hyE47GgWs4KSRkTumR_f-rI7psDOvItx88HnpH99M7GAQ3uktZjmvx4_vCvhHNtelV9mBxAzlGtS8EwoS_zZOephL00sZwWMLMo01THKwCGN/s320/sam+wip+008.jpg)
This is after going back in and taking care of that last 20% of work on the face. It’s really about defining edges and checking my value schemes. Most of this work is done by placing the image across the room, or under a heavy squint.
Portraits and likenesses are always a tricky prospect. I find that most failures come from trying too hard to reproduce one's reference. A photo can only portray how something looks, and that is hardly the measure of a person. Looking back, I find that I didn't really understand portraiture until I spent some time doing caricatures. It was a real eye-opener to understand it was possible to capture a person’s “likeness” without accurately rendering their features. Now I'm more concerned with the fidelity, or the truth of a thing.
This piece felt good all the way through. The way spending a day with Elizabeth Montgomery should be. The thing I'm most pleased with is not that it looks like her, I had lots of good reference so that wasn't very difficult, but it feels like her.