Three Steps

This is the second step. The first one has already taken the earth, and the leg going up is measuring out the sky. Bali is on his knees at the bottom right with his hands together, and he has worked out what the third step is going to cost him.

Nothing about this canvas is like the others. The colour describes rather than argues — real skin, real folds in the cloth, a sky stippled star by star with a brush. I painted it the way the subject is normally painted instead of the way I usually paint. Whether that was the right decision is a fair question and I have not settled it.