Self Portrait at the Age of 29 - Day 3, Keep Battling

  I started this painting session feeling very down.  I left off yesterday feeling good, but I wasn't feeling good about it today.  It's funny how your perception of a painting can change so drastically overnight; in some ways it feels like the painting itself changed while you weren't looking.
  So before I started today, I was thinking about redoing parts of it and maybe squinting in order to clarify the values.  I've fallen into this trap before, thinking that squinting will magically solve my problems.  I ignored the temptation to simplify and decided to just dive in.  Instead of looking for an easy solution, I just kept battling and reworking until it started to look better.  I've noticed that my process is a very up and down process and I really fight hard to make it look good.  It always requires a lot of struggle.
  I think the portrait is just about done and I'm going to work on the background some more and see how that goes.  Quite a journey with this one, but I like the way it looks