Painting #334 - Dec 24 - the Portrait at last

It really did take longer than I thought, I thought that today I would only have about 2 hours to finish it, well, I worked on it for 3 hours, then took a break to fix supper, after supper, I worked on it for another 3-1/2 hours, then put it in the frame, I am unsure if she expected it to be framed, but, I had the frame, I did have to go and pick up a piece of glass but, that's not a problem, and the other thing, is I'm unsure exactly what size they were expecting, but it came out quite large, it's framed to 20" x 24", probably why it took so long, I got Jeff quite quickly, and I had Carin in, then the next day, I changed it a bit, so it really moved things around, one eye was up too high, the nose was too long, the mouth was off a bit too, all that adjustment takes time, then the meat of the painting, smoothing and getting the highlights just right, I did fudge on the bouquet, I really didn't take a lot of time with it, I really felt that the portrait was more important, besides, I just can't put the same amount of detail everywhere, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! I am going to make this short tonight, since I still have to wrap gifts and I have to think about some of the food, I like to put the turkey on early in the morning, like about 2 or 2:30 and cook it on low all night, in the morning, I have to run the sweeper, mop and finish the cooking before everybody gets here, I'm already exhausted, so better get going, I love this painting (I'd say little, but it's not), and I hope you do too.