This is my brain...

This is my brain. This is my brain on drugs.

This is my girl Erin:



This is my brain on drugs:



And still more drugs:



Disregard the whole nose/flume/upper lip thing. It's still way to early for all that.

And back to the drug thing: Actually, we have a strong anti-drug policy here at The Year of Magical Painting and none of the images you see above involved any drug use whatsoever. Including alcohol. Which, by the way, is not prohibited under the collective bargaining agreement.

Also, a quick note on the phrase "my girl Erin": I mean, I don't know the woman whatsoever. So I'm the first one to admit that the phrase "my girl" is a bit presumptuous. That said, I think I've spent more time staring at photographs of her than probably anybody in the world over the last couple of months (other than, perhaps, a subset of perverts that should best go unacknowledged), so there's a sense of vesting that has occurred.

And a philosophical thought: One of the reasons that people spend the required membership fee to tune into TYOMP is certainly this: most of the time you only get to see the finished paintings. Here, you get to see them unfold before your very eyes. For good or for bad.

You may remember that we last left Ms. Burnett like this:



God Almighty, that was a low point. A low, low point. But this time around, I'm embracing my discomfort. I'm approaching the hair in a completely different manner. And I'm stepping away from the yellow on her face like it was a flaming broom and I'm one of those characters from The Wizard of Oz.

And a quick additional note: Actually, cropped as you see it above, I kind of like this version of Big Erin I. It doesn't look anything like the subject for whom it's named. But it has a kind of strength.

Anyway, the game is afoot. Look at how blurry the resource photo is. Somebody looked at it and said, "Don't you think that's a little blurry?" To which I responded, "I paint blurry."

And there's some truth in that.