Glistening wet

I like it when I can give you the feel of being there.  The smell of the paint.  The stink of the sweat.  The taste of the whiskey in your mouth.  The shards of glass that tear at your gut when you ask yourself if you dare to be great.  The itch you have behind your left knee.

All that shit, man.

Anyway, here we stand ...

I risked life and limb to climb up the step ladder to take the photo.  The others in the series were shot on the easel.  This one, as you can see, is way to wet to do anything like that.  So don't look too closely at the proportions.  I had to aggressively crop it into a rectangle.

Anyway, I like the cragginess of the thing.  You can, at any point now, start making the argument that it's almost done.

You -- meaning me -- can certainly keep going.  Quite a distance, in fact.  But knowing when to stop is something.  You are reminded, of course, of The Former Chairman ...

Knowing when to stop is something.  Although paintings as spare as The Former Chairman are perhaps best when rarely executed.

My next step is to clean up all those speckles, fill in some bits and pieces, give the poor man some hair, certainly.  Fix his eyes and mustache, certainly.

But at that point the arguing can begin.

Who are you arguing with?
Myself, obviously.
Really?
Yeah.  Nobody else gets a vote.  Nobody else is even in the room.
It's like the loneliness fo the long distance runner.
It is indeed, my friend.
It's like jumping off an 8-story building.
Yes it is.