Face on the Bar Room Floor III

I am now once more at work on my self portrait and a job of work it is too. I took a hiatus from the wretched thing for a month but it won't finish itself. It was damned with faint praise by my instructor as she said it resembled me. It is clearly a human head so yes it does look like me in that sense but it's not what is looking back from the mirror at me that's for sure! They say a poor workman blames his tools but in my own defence it's been 46 years since I worked in oils and that was pretty forgettable too. I don't care for oilpaint. It's smelly, messy, and takes forever to dry so you have to be patient. A weak point if ever there was one. I show up at the studio dark and early Friday mornings and there I am glowering at me as I dry off in a dim corner. Each time I see it afresh I think of the Iron Duke, you know, the Duke of Wellington, the one that sent Napoleon packing at Waterloo. A very nice fellow student has taken to calling it Jeanne d'Arc. She seems to be serious. The cursed thing has taken on a life of it's own and I still have three more weeks of work on it! I am looking forward to bringing it home and putting it in the closet with it's beaky face to the wall. That'll learn it!