The staring part is real. I've sat in front of pieces I made from memory and couldn't move, trying to work out what version of the thing I was actually looking at. Memory doesn't give you the object, it gives you what mattered about it, and that changes what ends up on the surface.

Working from memory changes the whole relationship to the painting. I've done it a handful of times and always ended up staring the same way, trying to figure out what my brain kept and what it let go. Hours of looking means you're seeing past the image into how you held it, what mattered enough to stick. That kind of absorption doesn't happen with reference right in front of you.

It’s impressive that you did this from memory, but I think it warrants a citation that it is an adaptation of Picasso’s Old Guitarist.