Never is the process of painting perfect (for me.) Sometimes however, I find that my end result, my finished art work, is perfect to me. I see many flaws in my own work even when the piece is finished, but these flaws are what make it perfect to me. The flaws are the lessons learned. I have been *mostly* self-taught as an artist, always aspiring to paint better and better. I really feel strongly about the idea that practice makes "your perfect." When I did my 50-50 show, I saw a tremendous difference from my #1 piece to my #50 piece. In my 20-20 show, I saw even more improvement. I am hoping this summer I will see a great improvement as well. It's not that I am learning new things (there are really only so many "rules" one can learn for oil painting), but it is that I am learning to better apply the things I know. I found this little "4 Part Question and Answer [to a better painting]" and couldn't think of anything else more accurate to "check" a piece of artwork.