Picture series go out of true the way boundaries do — a hand’s breadth at a time. A frame is made in one week, another a month later, and by the third month the woman in the first frame is a stranger to the woman in the latest one. The cause is rarely the rendering; it is the measuring. She was paced out from memory at every job, and memory moves the stakes a little each time it is asked. A card surveyed once and pasted every time does not drift.
Five lines that never move
Age and build. One number, one build, stated plainly. Hair. Colour, length and the way it is worn. Face. Skin tone, features and expression. Signature. One small repeatable detail. Wardrobe register. The fabrics and cuts the series lives in. Everything else — terrace, bench, light — belongs to the line for this sitting, beneath the card.
The habit that holds a series together
Paste the card, work the sitting, judge the result against the card, and file the scores with the set. It is unglamorous work, and it is the entire difference between a set that reads as one woman and a folder that reads as a crowd.