Picture series lose things the way hurried packing does — one small essential at a time, noticed only on arrival. 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 packing. She was assembled from memory at every job, and memory always leaves something behind. A card packed once and pasted every time arrives complete.
Five lines that never change
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 — the room, the window, the hour — belongs to the line for this sitting, beneath the card.
The habit that holds a series together
Paste the card, unpack 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.