Cheating

And I suppose I should admit to some form of cheating with the mouth ...

Cheating is the wrong word.  But I did take a super-thin Sharpie and draw in the outlines of the teeth.

I used to be a maniac about this stuff.  It started out that, other than priming the canvas and printing the title I never used anything but dripped paint.  Then I started squirting tube paint onto my thumb and smushing it onto the canvas.  Then I started smushing the tube paint directly on the canvas.  Then, every once in a while, if it seems like it's going to be more efficacious, I grab a paint brush and do a little bit of this or that (let me hasten to say in my defense that this is still extremely rare -- I'm trying to think of an example and am unable to do so; I only know I've done it).  And now, with the Sharpies ...

God help me.

Also there's something about an extreme close-up isn't there?  This, in and of itself, could be a fabulous painting.  Titled "The Mouth of the NRA" it would be something, perhaps ten feet wide and four feet high.

There's a commercial that's running during the basketball featuring a beautiful young woman in some kind of fancy Korean car.  Most of the time they are showing the exterior of the car.  But every once in a while they cut to an extreme close-up of either her eyes or her mouth.  Her lipstick must have taken somebody an hour to apply, then another hour with her head in the kiln to make it look like porcelain.  It's an extraordinary visual -- I'm gonna try to shoot it the next time I see it.

In the meantime, all you have is what you see above.  Replete with cheating.