Stats of interest (?)

And this as well, from the Google stat page for The Year of Magical Painting:

	Pageviews by Browsers Chrome 225 (29%) Internet Explorer 196 (25%) Safari 155 (20%) Firefox 153 (20%) Opera 17 (2%) Mobile Safari 6 (<1%) BingPreview 4 (<1%) Qt 4 (<1%) Mobile 3 (<1%) chromeframe 2 (<1%)

Can you believe Chrome users outnumber Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox users?  Am I living under a rock? 

I'm a Firefox guy, for you completists.  And I'm listening to Patsy Kline on vinyl as I type.

Correction

It should be noted that, for about an hour, the words Jasper Johns appeared where the words Robert Rauschenberg should have, in the post titled Scraped Rothko.

So for an hour, the world -- or a subset thereof -- thought it was Johns who had erased the deKooning drawing.  For this I apologize.

And one last thing about Gerhard Richter...

What is cool, in my mind, is his WWII inspired stuff.

You could argue that everything he does is inspired by WWII.  But I'm talking about paintings of fighter planes.  I find these images are way more emotionally loaded than, say, Rosenquist's pop art fighter planes.

Check this out:


What is certainly interesting is that these are American fighters.  And we understand that Richter is not only German, but old enough, having been born in 1932, to have lived through the war but not participated as a combatant, yes?  Wow--that's pretty fertile soil for growing the painterly mind.

Me?  I'd be painting Messerschmitts and Junkers.  Maybe that's why Richter is where he is and I'm where I am. 

Anyway, the cumulative impact of all these paintings is about equivalent to one Guernica.  That's just one man's opinion.  But if true, where does that leave Rosenquist?

Scraped Rothko

Items one and two should be marked Exhibits A and B for the defense. The first is, of course, "Erased deKooning Drawing," a work by Robert Rauschenberg.  If you type Erased deKooning into the blog search box you will almost certainly find a video interview with Rauschenberg about the painting.  It's highly recommended viewing.

Update:  Type Rauschenberg instead

Second is a work by Gerhard Richter.  Who last year sold more work at auction, as measured by the total amount of money changing hands, than Damien Hirst.

Which is a crass way of establishing artistic worth.

Yes it is.  But at the same time, it's not chopped liver.

No it isn't.

Anyway, the important thing right now, assuming you live in New York City, is that you turn off the computer and go see a movie called, I think, "Gerhard Richter: Painting" if it is still around.  Then report back.  I will continue with the post under the assumption that you've done so.

Me?  I'm not the guy's biggest fan in the world.  But I'm certainly interested in seeing how other people paint, and when it comes to that, the movie really delivers.  Plus, his wife is attractive.  So that helps.

Richter has gone through a number of styles, and the movie catches him during his squeegie period.  That is to say, he paints what appears to be a thickly rendered, relatively colorful abstract painting on a large canvas.  Then he takes a huge squeegie and starts scraping away at it.  One of the things that's interesting is how the bright colors, when smushed together over and over again, sideways and top-to-bottom, usually end up looking like mud you've scraped off your shoe.

Or shit.

Yes.  Or shit.

Nonetheless, it's pretty interesting and Exhibit B for the defense is just such a painting.  It's titled "Cage 6".  Which makes as much sense as me calling yesterday's wood-cut "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35.  Which, if you're too lazy to scroll down one post, looks like this:

The reason I bring it up is that the background of the painting -- the sunset behind the mountains -- is actually a Mark Rothko painting which I nipped off the interweb and pasted down (Thus the MoMA reference).   And we're all on the same page in understanding that I'm painting these things on my computer, yes?

Okay.  So one of the things I noticed was that once the Rothko was on my computer, I could manipulate that image in the same way I could manipulate my own stuff.  Including taking a massive electronic squeegie and scraping Mark Rothko's beautiful painting sideways several times, as if it had been delivered to my studio still as fresh and moist as a high school cheerleader.

And you comfortable with the cheerleader reference?

Yes.  I suppose so.

It might make some people uncomfortable.  You are, after all, what?  Seventy years old?

First of all, I'm not that old.  Second, people in the arts can say whatever they want, by and large.

But that guy with the Marlins can't say he likes Castro.

No he can't.

Okay.

Moving forward, all that thinking and scraping yielded Scraped Rothko, which is above.  And Scraped Rothko 2a and 2b, which are these:

 
 What has not been fully determined is whether this is a good idea or not.

It is interesting to see what scraping does.  And I love the below-surface artifacts the process leaves behind (see the one on the right above).  Although of what are they artifacts?  It's not like the computer knows what was underneath.  None of this makes sense, but I am motivated by it.  And perhaps that's point enough.

For the record, I am a big Rothko fan.  And the idea of being able to mess around with his work as if it had been delivered to my studio still as fresh and moist as a high school cheerleader, is titillating.

Perhaps in more of a Rauschenbergian way than a Richterian way.

Rainy Day Women #12 and 35

If Bob Dylan can call his songs whatever he wants, willy-nilly, then so can I.

Obviously.

Yes it is obvious, but I'm just saying it anyway.

There ...

I fixed it.  At least to the degree I was able.

And for the record, the next time I put one of those cutesie stones in the narrative box, get a gun and shoot me.

Aging Beef ... in the manner of Francis Bacon

This, for the record, is terrible.  I particularly refer to the entirety of the thing, but the black line across the top of the image bugs me more than anything.

Painting meat on a computer is harder than you might think.  Since this was kind of a one-off gag, unlikely to produce more.

Bloomberg Terminal

Words escape me.  I think I might be going insane.

The New Girl and Gertrude Stein

Is it my imagination, or does the new girl look a bit like Gertrude Stein?  God help her if it's true, as Ms. Stein was nobody's idea of a looker.  I cropped and rotated these images to help you with your deliberations:

All the naked girls

Arthur Miller, of course, wrote:  Can anyone remember love? It's like trying to summon up the smell of roses in a cellar. You might see a rose, but never the perfume.  Which is neither here nor there, but at least gets us into the mood.


All of which by way of saying I've been catching up on some paintings of friends.

If you look at the right nipple on the first one, it looks sort of like a rose.  Kind of a translucent one, but you can see the layers of the petals if you blow it up.  Or at least that's what I thought. 

Which then made me think of another file I was working on, in which a rose plays a significant roll, and the gears started churning.  Thus...

If you're a beautiful naked woman and want your picture painted, just pop by the studio.

I wonder if anybody will show up. 

Just out of the blue?

Well, not out of the blue.  Based on your specific invitation above.

They just knock on the door and say "I read your blog and I've popped by."?  I call that out of the blue.

Well, regardless.  I'm just wondering.

They won't.  I can promise you.

Kind of a buzz-kill, that sort of negativity.

Maybe so, but I'm a grizzled professional.  I am, however, loving my little watermark G stamp.

Oh, and this is the finished version of ...

Up The Mountain.

The thinking is something along the line of this:  As he wanders the mountains of China searching for the Great Truths, Jones encounters an assortment of famous people.  Keynes, Smith, Schumpeter (the Austrian economist, not the Knick guard), Krugman. People like that.  Maybe a CNBC broadcaster, for comic relief.

Bear is fine!

Moved by this quest, they join Jones' pilgrimage.  You can see there are now five.

Worth noting, a slight change in the copy.  I also love my "G" stencil.  It can be found at about the 7 o'clock mark.  I'm also noodling around with "water-marked" inscriptions along the bottom.

Dum Dum Da-Dum-Dum

I'm crawling belly-down through the Cambodian jungle humming the bass-line of White Rabbit over and over again, like some kind of mantra, twelve hours into my first tab of acid; the other one wrapped in a plastic baggie, which is in turn wrapped in a small plastic container, which is in turn tied around my neck with a leather thong that is otherwise decorated with six or seven dessicated human ears (which look a lot like dried apricots, for you completists), shirtless, slathered with a combination of pig lard and camo paint, a knife in my teeth and a beat-up AK-47 slung across my back, all while painting this picture.
  

Don't even ask about the rifle.

Levon Helm, dead today

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, "no" was all he said

Take a load off, Annie
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Annie
And (and) (and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

I picked up my bag, I went lookin' for a place to hide
When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side by side
I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on let's go downtown"
She said, "I gotta go but my friend can stick around"

Take a load off, Annie
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Annie
And (and) (and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

Go down, Miss Moses, there's nothin' you can say
It's just ol' Luke and Luke's waitin' on the Judgment Day
"Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?"
He said, "Do me a favor, son, won'tcha stay and keep Anna Lee company?"

Take a load off, Annie
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Annie
And (and) (and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

Crazy Chester followed me and he caught me in the fog
He said, "I will fix your rack if you'll take Jack, my dog"
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man"
He said, "That's okay, boy, won't you feed him when you can"

Yeah, take a load off, Annie
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Annie
And (and) (and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

Catch a cannon ball now to take me down the line
My bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time
To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she's the only one
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone

Take a load off, Annie
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Annie
And (and) (and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

Nazareth, Pennsylvania, is, for the record, the home of C.F.Martin & Company, makers of magnificent guitars.  My friend Dave owns one.  You should see the neck.

And this is lovely too:

Allen Raymond Day

Five years out, and I still miss the old guy.  Ahhh, peace.

Mets update

Sorry, but they were 7-3, not 9-3. And now they're 7-4. But I remain as tightly-wired as one of those things that spins around inside electric motors.

How 'bout those Mets?

9-3? Leading the division? One could become accustomed to such riches.

And likewise, how 'bout this bad boy:



The quote is, of course, Keynes.

Life may be a bridge ... Between darkness and darkness ... But look at the birds.

I'm trying to figure out if I can get to Washington to see the Ito Jakuchu show before it closes next week. Check this out:



Dog! I mean, really. The guy at the Times called it "one of the most beautiful shows" he'd ever seen. But my favorite review comes from somebody named Peter Levine. I just stumbled across his blog. See it here, and be sure to scroll down to his take on Hegel's dialectic. Very strong.

Check this out too:



What is astounding is that Ito was painting stuff like this around 1750. I look at this, then I look down at my hands, and I whisper this simple prayer:

Lord, help me to become the painter my dog already thinks I am.

Fire Alarm

For you completists, the fire alarm here at the Cannon Building has been ringing for several minutes now. This happens often enough that I am continuing with my usual routine. There is almost never a fire, although I did once wake up with a fireman in my living room telling me, at 3 in the morning on a winter night, that I had to go stand outside.

I live on the third floor, so I had to do what he said. Although I did put my clothes on. My studio, on the other hand, is on the second floor. So if worst comes to worst, I can exit through the window. All that said, there's almost never a fire so I've learned to take these things with a couple grains of salt.

Update: The alarm has stopped. Perhaps it burned up in the fire.

I had oatmeal for breakfast and I'm listening to Kat Edmonson, whose stuff is pretty good although her voice is girly enough as to make it an acquired taste. Jazzy stuff, kind of like Nelly McKay but without the loathsome self-indulgence that renders Ms. McKay a truly annoying listening experience.

Quick lyric by Ms. Edmonson:

I stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me
You ... soft and only
You ... lost and lonely
You ... just like heaven.

You have to hear it to see how she draws out those 'yous' -- three syllables each -- but wow, what a song. And loathsome might be too strong a word.

Ahem...
Yes? What?
I probably shouldn't say.
Say what?
Well, just the notion of you labeling somebody else as loathsomely self-indulgent seems, on the face of it, to be the zenith of hypocrisy.
Wow. Don't hold back. Let me have it.
I do have more, if you'd like.
Stop. I retract my previous statement.
Which one?
The one that says don't hold back and that you should let me have it.
So you're saying you don't want me to let you have it?
Precisely.
Realizing, as I'm sure you do, that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?
Yes, realizing that very thing.
Okay. Perhaps some other time.
Perhaps.

Where we currently stand ...

... vis-a-vis my woodblock series.

In order, from top to bottom. As regards the copy, don't judge too harshly. The narrative stream is probably the least-under-control element of the whole series. Plus, there's a typo in there somewhere, which is really galling.

The images, on the other hand, are rounding into shape quite nicely--although one could call the fish a bit of a low point. The last one, which is quite lovely, if I do say so myself, is still cooking.

I like this one too...

It's called "The Drunken Monk", which is fun on several levels, as noted in the last paragraph of the Times article...

Like the Ming painter Shitao, whose free brush Fu especially revered, Fu believed that liquor stirred the creative juices. “Often After Being Drunk” is the phrase on a personal seal that he frequently stamped on his paintings. More than one art historian believes that Fu drank himself to death. If so, it may have been just in time. He navigated more than his share of ideological challenges, but it seems unlikely that he would have survived those of the Cultural Revolution.

I bet the man never once went to the dentist.

Fu Baoshi

Remember this from about ten posts ago?



It was inspired a brush and ink painting by a Chinese artist named Fu Baoshi. I spent a part of the other day staring at his stuff in the flesh, and it was really just extraordinary. There was a moment when I turned and looked at one long vertical work and thought, Lord-have-mercy-I'm-about-to-burst-into-tears.

It was really that good.

These from the Times:



This one above was shot by Jennifer S. Altman for the Mothership, because it's good to give credit where it's due, just to give you a sense of scale.

And this one, from the Nanjing Museum, because... Well, just because.



To see these things in sunlight is to see Marxism die. Which is ironic because Fu--a modern painter, not some guy from the Ming dynasty--was dragooned into the service of the Chinese communists and ended up painting a bunch of quasi-propaganda near the end of his career.

Which must have chaffed a bit.

The show, sadly, is closed. So don't dash out. You can read the story in the Times here, though.

Novacaine

Do you know how you hear about something but don't really think about the ramifications of that thing you heard about until you are confronted with the reality of the thing? I refer, of course, to the newly opened dentist's office right next to my studio.

A month or so ago, I noticed that the suite next to my studio was alive with action. Being sociable enough, I wandered in and said something like "Hi, I work next door and just wanted to say hi." The person I was talking to told me her name was So-and-So and that she was a dentist. "Cool," I respond. "Maybe I can get a cleaning sometime." (I say this more as a courtesy than an actual plan--everybody knows if you drink enough beer you don't have to go to the dentist)

"Oh no," she replies nonetheless. "It's a pediatric practice."

So, occupied with my own shit, I sort of tuck this in the back of my brain and don't really think about it until this morning, about quarter of ten, when I stumble into the studio to begin whatever it is that, when I refer to it as my 'workday', people roll their eyes and snicker in a mean-spirited way.

And let me tell you, Dear Reader, the caterwaulling that's coming under my front door and through my east wall is astonishing. These kids are screaming. What's up with that? Are they just yanking the teeth out willy-nilly? Without the benefit of modern pain-management products? Then, every once in a while, there's a deathly quiet. Like the silence of the lambs.

Which is disconcerting.

Me? I'm listening to my Stevie Wonder album at a relatively high volume. "Fulfillingness First Finale," for you completists. Which works fine, for what it is. But I sometimes like to paint in silence too.

Dat Bess, she my woman now

On my way to see Porgy & Bess, an opera about poor black people in Charleston written by two Jewish brothers from New York with whom, when corrected for inflation, I'd gladly exchange checking accounts.

Go figure.

They say Audra McDonald is a force of nature. Volcanic. Can't wait.

In the meantime, The First Great Fish...



There's a typo in one of the narrative boxes, which steams me no end. Will be fixed later, at much expense of time. Annoying. And further on the copy, let me just tell you that, speaking of the copy as a whole, it is a mess. Just me figuring out how to proceed and writing down any sort of stuff to move things forward. I can't get the voice of the guy who called David Carradine "Grasshopper" out of my head.

Patience, Grasshopper. The path to truth is fraught with peril.

Stuff like that. It may be working against me.

This fish is killing me, Volume 2

Maybe this is it...

This fish is killing me

Somewhere in here is a good idea.

More on Mike Wallace

First, it should be noted that when I first posted about Mike Wallace dying, I wrote Dan Rather instead. Which was wrong, but hey, you get old, shit happens. The spin off is significant, however. For a couple of moments, the world--or some subset of the world--thought Dan Rather was dead. For this, I apologize.

Second, a couple of people have said I should have been nicer to the man (how mean was I?). So here's a clip of his interview with Barbra Streisand.



It doesn't include a particularly nasty question about what her mother told Wallace. I couldn't find it, but manoman, it was a cheap shot.

In the interest of balance, the Times has a lengthy obit here. I'm sure it's glowing, by and large.

The Dao of Jones

Maybe that's the name of the book. To date we've evolved from Samuel Banks to Caleb Banks to Oratio Banks to Oratio Jones. The beauty of TYOMP, of course, is seeing the brain in action. This would be part of that.

And speaking of which, I'm halfway through this fish:



The general feeling is that everytime Oratio needs some guidance on his quest, he asks a fish. Or a tiger. Or an eagle.

I'm unhappy with the fish, by the way. One loses the delicacy of gesture when painting with a goddam mouse, and the whole thing feels a little stiff. Also, I can't quite get the lightness of image that characterizes the actual genre. I'm always bearing down, so to speak, and the colors quickly become saturated. It's especially obvious in the golfing painting.

Still, the quest continues.

Be The Brand!

Curiosity got the better of me and I googled Tamara Jacobs, a woman I haven't thought about in I don't know how many years. Lo and behold, there she was, president of Tamara Jacobs Communications. If you are in crisis, or just need some media training, I would suggest clicking here. She gets my highest recommendation.

Update moments after publishing: Look! Click on the "Clients" tab. She's got a blurb from some guy from the ADA talking about the very event! What fun is this!

How many exclamation marks is that?
I know. But I got excited. I apologize.
And it's laughable to think anybody reading this blog needs crisis management.
Yes it is. I apologize for that too.
Or if they did, that they'd use this blog as a resource for obtaining consulting services.
Okay, enough already. I apologized.
I can just imagine the conversation: "Hello, you don't know me but my company is being investigated by Rolling Stone Magazine and I need to train my spokesperson for the worst case scenario. I read about your company in The Year of Magical Painting and was hoping you would help."
The mind reels, doesn't it?
Yes it does.

I suppose, in the interest of inclusion, I should mention that we were both working for a company called Van Vechten and Associates. Prettiest office I ever had. Beautiful brownstone. 12 foot ceilings. Fireplace. I looked out across East 64th Street right at the Plaza Athenee. The tenant above was Carolina Herrera, the fashion designer. She was quite pleasant, by the way. But her husband was an ass.

Those were some fun times.

Mike Wallace, Dead Yesterday

I was doing public relations/crisis management for the American Dental Association in, say, the mid-80s when 60 Minutes called up the ADA and said they were doing a story about mercury content in silver fillings and how people with MS who had their fillings removed experienced spontaneous remission of symptoms.

The ADA then called me. If it had been an episode of the Simpsons, I would have hung up the phone after that initial conversation and my eyelids would have snapped shut and open, exposing dollar signs instead of eyeballs. Ca-Ching!!!

But that's not the point.

The point is that 60 Minutes, the presumed paragon of electronic long-form journalism, was engaged in the most irresponsible brand of crapola, ratings-driven, gotcha news broadcasting. I'll spare you the details (it gets boring quickly and here at TYOMP we are all about the short, pithy post), but I had no real skin in the game--still don't--and I can objectively say 60 Minutes' reporting was not just complete bullshit but likely a risk to the general public health. Anyway, at one moment in the broadcast, as if to emphasize a point, they scanned their camera over Tamara Jacobs (the media trainer) and me--the so-called expensive consultants.

A cheap shot.
No, not very sporting. Although Tamara was extremely attractive.
I hear you, brother.
And I was wearing a full-enough beard that some of my friends referred to me as Rabbi Huffnagle.

And yes, we were expensive. But that's not the point.

The point is, I stopped watching 60 Minutes after that because I decided it was a load of crap. So while I dutifully note the passing of Wallace (and it should be noted for accuracy that the ADA correspondent was Morley Safer, not Wallace), let's not get carried away with the hosannas.

The Tao of Caleb 2

First, a revision of the painting shown yesterday. I've changed the name of the main character to Caleb Banks. Although now I'm thinking about changing it again.



Second, a more recent painting.

More recent?
Yes.
Than yesterday?
Yes. I'm painting one a day, with the odd break.
Oh.
I can feel the influence of Augusta National on your work.
Yes you can. The above depicts the 12th hole at Augusta.
I get nauseated just looking at it.
It's a stressful hole. But at least when you put your ball in the water you can usually find it.
Which is nice. Golf balls are expensive these days.

I'm thinking about Oratio.

What does that mean?
Oratio. As the first name of my character.
Really?
As in, off the top of my head, "There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio."
Oh, that.

The Tao of Caleb

Tao is, of course, pronounced like Dow.



And thus begins The Tao of Caleb. I've been messing around with these computer-generated woodblock prints and I think I'm starting to get the hang of them. In the final version, the name Samuel will be replaced with the name Caleb. For reasons I'm not fully clear on, but still.

My God, what a loathsome term.
What?
Computer-generated.
It is, isn't it? Kind of gives the whole enterprise short shrift.
Yes it does.

And now this:

Consider this image peeled off the interweb:



On the left is a work by my new boy Hiroshige. On the right is a reinterpretation of that work by no less than Vincent van Gogh.

Really? van Gogh?

Never shy in this area, I've added my own version:



I'm of two schools of thought. But then again, I always am. Mine's a bit bland, compared to the other two, but hey--I'm just figuring the program out. And besides, I'm a bland person. I'm like cottage cheese in a bag of skin.

Also, in my own defense, I'm still working on it. The tree and foreground need some more detailing, plus some other stuff.

If you're interested, here's a quick blurb from something called WebMuseum, Paris:

Ando Hiroshige was born in Edo (now Tokyo) and at first, like his father, was a fire warden. The prints of Hokusai are said to have first kindled in him the desire to become an artist, and he entered the studio of Utagawa Toyohiro, a renowned painter, as an apprentice. In 1812 Hiroshige took his teacher's name (a sign of graduation), signing his work Utagawa Hiroshige. His career falls roughly into three periods. From 1811 to about 1830 he created prints of traditional subjects such as young women and actors. During the next 15 years he won fame as a landscape artist, reaching a peak of success and achievement in 1833 when his masterpiece, the print series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (scenes on the highway connecting Edo and Kyoto), was published. He maintained this high level of craftmanship in other travel series, including Celebrated Places in Japan and Sixty-nine Stations on the Kiso Highway. The work he did during the third period, the last years of his life, is sometimes of lesser quality, as he appears to have hurriedly met the demands of popularity. He died of cholera on October 12, 1858, in Edo.

The original painting in question was executed in 1857, which suggests, as per the above, that my boy Hiroshige had fallen off the sharp edge of genius. Hey, it happens. WebMuseum, Paris is a fun website. Send the man some money by clicking on the Everything you need to know section, then the FAQ section, then the How do I contribute? section. Yes, it's complicated. But life is short, my friends.

And this too...

I mean, honestly ... could you just die?

I suppose I should note that, filled with fire in my belly, I downloaded the heavy-duty Artrage program to my Mac and this is a result of that, with a tip of the hat to Fu Baoshi, who's extraordinary work can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art. If you can't drag your ass over there, click here.

One particularly sweet one looks like this:

Study for Inverted Keynes

And then there's this:



Oh My God!

Portrait of Bill Self

For those of you not quite in the know, Bill Self (great name) is the coach of the Kansas University men's basketball team. Just last night he and the Jayhawks got their asses handed to them by Kentucky in the final game of the NCAA Tournament.

Since the game was boring, I opened up a new app on my iPad and painted this portrait of Self:



The program is called Artrage. $4.99 (which is just a hair less than a bottle of Bud at the Peter McManus Cafe). And really, quite amazing.

This is Self himself:



He has a nice squareness to his jaw and a good strong straight nose, and I thought, drawing freehand while watching him on the television, that if I could get those two features across, then write the words "Bill Self" across the top, that I'd be like hungry ducks on clean water--or whatever they say in Kansas to suggest a level of general contentment. Remind me to ask Lance the Photographer what they actually say--he might know.

None of this is important other than by way of drawing your attention to the technology at work. Really, quite amazing. If you look closely at the image you can see blunt brush strokes, some airbrushing around his jaw, paint applied directly from the tube, some scraping with a palette knife, and some other things. This, by the way, was the first time I'd ever used the app, so there is a good bit of experimentation going on, just to see what is what.

In your defense?
Yes. In my defense.
Defense wins ballgames, my friend.
Yes it does. Thus the disclaimer.

I'm currently reading Liar's Poker and Death Comes to Pemberley, based on the theory that one is best served by having one work of non-fiction and one of fiction concurrently active. Liar's Poker, as you likely know, is a Wall Street book by Michael Lewis. Death Comes to Pemberley is perhaps a little less obvious. Both a murder mystery written by P.D. James and a kind-of-fun riff on what things would be like at Pemberley five years or so after Elizabeth Bennet married Fitzwilliam Darcy, I am enjoying it at exactly the amount one might expect.

This would be Jane Austin we're talking about, yes?
Yes.
Who doesn't like Jane Austin? Your dead father would be proud.
Yes he would. God blessim.
Does it anger you that Mr. Darcy has a bigger Wikipedia page than you?
No.
Are you bringing all this Pemberley business up because you think your portrait of Bill Self might actually look more like Mr. Darcy than Mr. Self?
Yes.
Defense wins ballgames, my friend.
Yes it does.
Olivier as Heathcliff jumps to mind as well.
Yes he does.

Anyway, the technology is really quite marvelous, and you never have to wash your hands even once. And when the paint builds up on your iPad, you do this:



This presumes you're using acrylic paints.