Yo Jose. Sup?

There are many of you who think I just sit around, paralyzed with the ecstasy of being a Giants fan, having spent Sunday evening through Wednesday noon savoring the historic drubbing of the hated Dallas Cowboys, then anticipating spending Wednesday afternoon through Sunday afternoon slavering in anticipation of whupping the Packers--literally drooling so hard I can hardly type for fear of short-circuiting my keyboard--prior to legging it to the Pete McManus Cafe for the actual viewing.

Well, if that's what you thought, you were wrong. Ha.

No. I've been hard at work on my portrait of Erin Burnett. (This in addition to brainstorming "The Enunciation of Joseph"--how much multi-tasking can one man reasonably do?) Anyway, commissioned by a trader from Philadelphia, the thinking is that the Burnett painting will nicely complement the portrait of Maria Bartiromo that he bought a couple of months ago. Since, according to a recent count, roughly a million people read TYOMP, I won't give you his actual name. I mean, who needs to have nut-jobs jumping out of the bushes asking to see Big Maria? Instead, for purposes of this line of posting, I will assign him the name of Jose Arcadio Buendia.

Yo, Jose. Sup?

I am working from two separate photos of Ms. Burnett. They are this one...



which I am using more as an exploration of her shimmering solar plexus, if you will. (I am also amused at the notion of the lavaliere mic functioning as a nipple surrogate.) And this one...



which I am using as the primary image. Man, is she hot. Plus, she really just screams "excellent hygiene," doesn't she? I'd love to know the name of her eye-shadow. I bet it's Lavender Mist.

(Quick aside: did you know there's not a trace of lavender in Pollock's "Lavender Mist.")

Now, before I go any further, let me warn you that the early going is filled with frustration, anxiety... etc. The very embodiment of the experience that has taught me not to keep loaded handguns in the studio.

Anyway, here we go:



I carumba, Jose. Your painting of Big Erin is so hot I've had to use fans to keep it from self-immolation. Muy caliente, Senior.



Here we see Big Erin cropped in tight, right after some initial background was added to the pencil sketch.

One of the many problems I've been having with the painting is that Big Erin has a tendency to look like anybody other than Erin Burnett. Here, she has chosen Loni Anderson. She has also spent some time looking like my friend Earl's wife, Lori. Which is a lovely thing to look like unless you are supposed to look like Erin Burnett. Currently she's looking a lot like James Brolin. Which, let me tell you, is a real problem.

(I mean, if she just kept looking like Lori, I could have finished her up and mailed her to Earl, saying something like, "Hey, here's your wedding present--a beautiful painting of your wife," then gone back to the drawing board to complete the commission. But James Brolin. I mean, who am I going to send that to? Barbra Streisand? Who I can't stand? Oy gevalt.)

I would simply warn you that it is still early in the process. And remind you that (and granted, the techniques for the two paintings are completely different--obscured box vs. straight drip), Big Lloyd 2 once looked like this:



And it's gonna make me a ton of dough (I'm hoping). So let's everybody just calm the hell down.

We are much farther along than this, let me also say. And we have "come to our senses" more than a couple of times already. So, were this Blog a participatory activity rather than a passive, albeit thrilling, reading experience, your job would be to jump to not even one single, solitary conclusion based on what you've seen.

But I don't want to share all at once. This will do for now.

I'm building suspense.

Which you have to love.








Oy, I can't stand it.