The electronic critic

Something I have recently discovered is that once you scan something and put it up on the computer screen, all is revealed! What is it about the electronic eye that sees every flaw when the human eye can't? It's frustrating.

I painted a portrait today for a Secret Santa exchange (yes, I know I'm late, but we have until Jan. 11th to get it there), and was completely satisfied with it...until I scanned it and saw that one side of her face was noticeeably flatter/thinner than the other, that her mouth wasn't at quite the right angle, and that I needed to reshape a couple of teeth to look like her actual smile. So, I picked it back up off the scanner, and filled in the cheek, re-slanted the top lip a little, and fixed her teeth, and now, at last, I think I have a good likeness.

It was supposed to be a $15 value, but it was also supposed to encompass "what you do" as a "creative," and this is what I do...so Angie's getting a portrait.

No worries about her seeing this unless I call it to her attention; it was a random draw-a-name exchange on Instagram, and I don't know her from Adam. And I used a screenshot from a video she posted as my source photo. But I hope that when she receives it she is pleased with her little Christmas portrait.

"Angie"—pencil and acrylics and Stabilo (brown) on watercolor paper, 8.5x11 inches. I used one of my abstract backgrounds because she is already quite a pink young lady, from Toledo, Ohio!