What I've learned in 2 years

  I've written about self portraits before, and every time I paint one, it acts as a stepping stone to see how far I've come.  I don't know exactly, but I think I've painted about 12-15 finished self portraits.  I did a lot of them when I was in school because I didn't always have a model to pose.  
  Before my most recent one, the last self portrait I did was when I was a senior at Penn and I was 22 years old.  It came out very well and I think it took me about 3 weeks to paint.  I have it hanging above my bed and I look at it every day.  It marks a very happy period in my life and I'll keep it forever.  Every painting I do is very dear to me and makes me sentimental when I look back at them.  
  In the two years that are between these two self portraits, I've learned many things.  The reason for my growth is because I've painted a lot of paintings.  Some of them are pretty bad, but I've done a lot of commissions that I'm super proud of.  
  I'm starting to learn that the materials, technique, palette and everything are all secondary to the great poetic theme.  Of course, I value technique immensely, but it will always be subservient to the theme.  And the truth is that my technique is really simple and I use a fairly basic palette.  A lot of my paintings may look very realistic, but they actually aren't.  Aside from doing portraits, I don't like realism; even my most accurate portraits are idealized.
  The other main thing that I've learned is how important tonal arrangements are in a painting.  I sum it up in the follow order of importance:  Line -> Value (tone) -> Color.  It may be my colorblindness, but I place a great deal of importance on the value.  
  I keep learning every day, I paint almost every day and I'm still addicted to it after 10 years.

*See pictures below..

"Self Portrait Aged 24" - Tonal