Annotations Welcome

In the old days I used to inscribe a 6" lightly-penciled grid on the surface of my canvases to match a similar grid on the surface of my resource photos. If you go back through some of the more comprehensive sequences you can usually see it in the early stages.

I'd use the grid to painstakingly, sort of, transfer the outline of the photographic image to the face of the painting. This is a process (although it's stood the test of centuries) about which I'm becoming more and more ambivalent.

So with Ratner I just drew a center line on both the canvas and the photo, just to give myself the lay of the land, and then had at the thing.

Gestural.
Exactly.
Free-hand, if you will.
Just so.

What I like about Rat #1 is that it seems quite a bit looser than my recent work. And I think that's a good thing.

How come one shoulder's almost completely black and the other is your usual squiggle?
I liked the way the black shoulder balanced out the bulge of black hair on the opposite side of his head.
Wow. You actually think about stuff like that?
Sure. I'm a painter. What do you think I think about?
Now that, my friend, is a question.
Yes it is.
What's your first annotation going to be?
I'm thinking "Rat #1", but I've got time. What would yours be?
Now that, my friend, is a question.
Yes it is.