You wouldn’t know it by looking at it, but there is a whole other portrait under this one of Tracy. Sometimes a painting is coming along swimmingly when, quite suddenly, a struggle begins and I simply cannot capture a proper likeness.  The only remedy is paint over the canvas and start again.  Most often in these cases, I work from a new source image the second time around, focusing on an entirely different expression.

Tracy certainly isn’t the first subject to challenge me in this way!