Artists sometimes complain that they find it difficult to get a clear perspective on their own work. This can be especially true when you’ve been working in a particular style, or on a specific subject, for some time. You get so involved in the work, so deeply concerned in what you have been creating, that it’s hard to take any kind of step back. This is natural enough – sometimes the way inspiration works means that you feel as if you have been breathing a topic for a long time, either because it has been building up for a while and you have been working out how to approach it for weeks or even months or years, or because the process of creating the actual work was difficult and consumed all of your attention while it was going on.