Telephone, 5×7″, oil on panel. Purchase here.

Today’s painting is my cellphone, a lovely little piece of industrial design. Sad to say I don’t think I quite did it justice. The light is pretty good, there’s a problem with the bigger shadow, though. The drawing is off, and I think it has to do mostly with the lower right-hand corner of the light reflecting off the top of the cellphone. Fine curves are very tricky things. There are an infinite variety of ways to go slightly off, but your eye can always see that it’s not quite right. Perhaps that’s what led Sargent to declare that a portrait is a picture where something is wrong with the mouth. Those are very complex curves indeed.