I wanted to try my hand at impressionism. Logically I turned to the master—Claude Monet. I would have liked to do this all the way and open air paint with a real lioness, or at least some taxidermy and a river in my back yard (at my Brooklyn warehouse). Also, most painters would advise a few mini study’s before going big. I thought I’d struggle for two months with a piece that required me to paint from a ladder.

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