Dead Skunk on the Side of the Road

Years ago, I was riding my bike.  My eye was on a new white stripe painted on the side of the road. My feet spinning, my hands on the handle bars, my eyes on the road, I followed the white stripe. Suddenly I came across a dead skunk. The person who had painted the stripe, had painted right over the dead skunk. Nothing interrupted his job. He just kept painting down the road.

The Skunk

The skunk lay under the line for a long time. I don’t know if the winter did him in or a hungry fox drug him off. The skunk is gone but there is a spot on the road where you can still see where the skunk lay.

They’ve repainted the line but the remnants remain.

It reminds me to do my best work. To go for excellence instead of speed. Sometimes you have to stop and get the skunk off the road and then paint. I try to remember this when I’m trying to get a character just right. You keep trying until your character feels right to you.

Here are some characters I’ve spent some time on.

Here are the characters. I would probably add a few more in the foreground on the finished painting.