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Carolyn, I think your apology is unnecessary. Everyone has to experiment and see what works for him or her. Sharon and Michele may well be able to go through my portraits and find many errors so I am not attempting to speak from any level of expertise, but I have occasionally changed eyes from my reference photos and no one has ever seemed to find the resulting painting at all troubling. On the other hand I have sketched from life since I was a child and only went to photo references later in life when I began to do oils; this kind of apprenticeship is essential to understand anatomy and know what liberties can and cannot be taken with it.
I would not go so far as to echo John's vehemence because people need to find their own comfort levels and the other opinions were offered with sincerity and doubtless echoed their own truths, but certainly there is no one right answer. I find working with less than ideal reference photos to be a challenge because it forces me to be creative with my material, but it definitely is not to everyone's taste. I do agree with John about the lovely paintings that Clive has submitted thus far, which is another reason why I would be quite comfortable seeing him tackle this particular commission.
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