Agreed, finish a work and move forward. Don’t linger on something to get to “perfection”. Strive towards that in the next painting. These are always a delight to see, a bright spot in my day when things have gone sideways.

I haven’t commented in a while. Having skipped a few I can see a lot of difference between them and now. The color choices and blending looks so much smoother and more nuanced. Your lights and darks are looking more dynamic, but could use a bit more work, it’s ok to get really dark and to hide detail if the artwork calls for it (the bottom of the photo has the jacket and shirt almost too dark to see detail while the painting just a smidge too light in tonal value(dark vs light)). Keep up the fantastic work.

Looking great again. The head shape, eyes and skin are all seeing the work you put in from your previous paintings. By taking the artistic license to edit out the bit of jowl hang makes being able to see the chin much nicer. You have a wonderful job on the eyes so much of how Samuel shows his work is through the eyes so it’s nice with the whole package looks like it should. I think now you might consider doing a bit more on blending with your colors. Right now it looks like Samuel but you could much closer with a bit more time adding more colors to give yourself a smoother time blending.

This is just good, solid work again. The blending on the cloths is great and getting much better. You work on the face is where I feel you could use a bit more focus when you are painting the next Sam. Other than the dimple that someone else mentioned you seem to have lost a bit of his jaw line to help separate his jaw and neck. Not a huge deal, just an observation where you might consider putting more focus on color blending and light/dark color choice to help you.

Got to keep the train rolling. Always point out the things done well so that they can focused on more. Overall there is steady progress so I can’t point directly to any one area that needs your direct focus. Eyes are always going to be hard, they have so many shapes, colors, textures, and reflections, that doing all of it, all the time is hard, try not to beat yourself up too much.

The confidence again is being put on display. Confident enough to try a beard and a background. I’m happy to see you kept the focus on Samuel and kept the background basic. The blending is getting much better and selecting blend-able colors for the skin is getting much better. Good sharp edges from face to beard edge. Keep going, this is great.

I’ve been watching you post these since #1. I can say that I enjoy all of them, but it sure looks like you are getting more comfortable with what you’re doing. This #5 feels more like you have proportions and shading much more focused, and dialed in.

Painting portraits of people is hard work, especially famous people. Humans in general focus on pattern recognition and the things we see a lot of are peoples faces, so humans tend to be “good” at finding flaws when something doesn’t look quite right. Don’t let this discourage you. This is looking great. Keep it up.