There’s nothin’ quite like that moment when you’ve got a piece of illo board covered in watercolor washes that looks like nothing much, and you stare at it and think “Man, how is this even gonna WORK?” and then you pull out the colored pencils, and you grit your teeth, and you start in, and you do one little section, and you step back, and you go “Ohhh…yeah.”

Then you wait nervously for a second to make sure the Kool-Aid man doesn’t smash through the wall and completely negate any chance of getting your damage deposit back on the apartment. And most of the time, this does not, in fact, happen. And you gaze upon the tiny patch of the painting and think “Man, if I can get the rest of this sucker lookin’ like that…”

The painting may yet die, it may yet fail, it may turn into a confusing compositionless morass of lines, it may muddy from too many washes, the cat may throw up on it, the Kool-Aid man might wait until your back is turned and come and rain staining red death upon you and the art, no matter how valiantly you throw yourself across the painting to save it, but for now, life is good.

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