Mom came and sat a third time. Theoretically I could blame the result on her talking a lot while I painted, but that is kind of lame. The good thing is I am learning a lot. Traditionally many portraits are of a person sitting in some kind of passive, waiting mode. Maybe this is one reason why Lucian Freuds paintings are more interesting. His models are sitting, lying down, standing and variations of this. It is hard to go very very close as I sometimes like to do. And it is hard to capture a specific expression. Well, to put it plainly – it is hard. Very difficult, as clearly demonstrated by the image below. It will be a few weeks before I get another chance to work with this portrait, which may be good. I am normally extremely self critical when I am working on a piece and in order to find some qualities in this work I may need to put it aside for a while. But in its limited state, I have to say it is definitely my mother. When looking at it up close it is better. From a distance I don’t like it at all.