Somewhere on this planet there is another ink drawing that looks exactly like this. I painted it twenty minutes before I painted the one scanned above. Perhaps an explanation is due.
In 1968 I attended summer school at Stanford University taking all fine arts classes-- clay sculpture, painting and life drawing (For the uninitiated, that means nude models daily. Cumulatively with my later UCLA Fine Arts Degree, that means I've seen more naked bodies than most rock stars.)
I painted the doppelganger to the above art for a painting class with a Rapidograph India Ink drawing style for the tree trunks incorporated into the overall ink wash painting technique for more visual interest. The assignment had been plein air landscape, and my chosen subject was harsh noonday sun over a promenade of a glade of trees overlooking an escarpment (many Stanford habitues said they recognized the locale immediately. I wonder if it's still there?)
As with my recent Cleo Viper photograph (LINK) I recognized the rare-for-me attainment of perfection (to dispell accusations of hubris, I'll define as art which cannot be improved.) No sooner had this realization materialized than so did an ad hoc buyer. The passerby offered me an amenable sum and I sold it to her on the spot. To fulfill the assignment I immediately painted its identical twin, the one in the above image, in the next twenty minutes.
Mr. Twister has oft chided me that I've had been a good artist if I'd ever spent more than twenty minutes on a painting...
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