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This piece was originally intended to be a portrait of my girlfriend, Josie. I had her model for me in the early stages, then worked off some photographs. But, no matter how much I worked on it, I just wasn’t satisfied. I felt like it wasn’t capturing her energy or likeness very well. I worked on it for a few weeks straight, continually restarting and pivoting. But, it kept reminding me of different people (at one point it resembled Lily Gladstone lol) and not Josie. Eventually, I just gave up on capturing her likeness and played around with it – I started incorporating finger painting and stopped looking at any references, I let it get more abstract and impressionistic. In the end, I think giving up on the portrait was a good idea, and I’m happy with the painting now – even though it doesn’t capture her likeness, I think this painting did end up capturing some of Josie’s spirit. In any case, I redeemed myself a few months later with a proper portrait.