How To Draw Jesus

I'm sure you've seen by now the unauthorized restoration job performed on a priceless Jesus fresco by an 81-year old Spanish woman, who after becoming distressed at the deterioration of the 19th century painting applied her own brushwork in an attempt to fix it. I found this to be both funny and sad; funny, obviously, because the resulting image is inherently hilarious, and sad because not only did she mostly ruin a valuable old work of art, there's something about laughing at the ineptitude of old people that I find distasteful.

That is, until I saw in the news recently that the woman is currently suing the church to get a cut of the increased donations to that church that resulted. Really, I was worried that she'd feel bad that she did such damage to her place of worship. She needn't worry about that, as her restoration has increased traffic to the church and brought in a fair amount of money for the institution.

But then to sue? Hell, if she needs the money that bad, there are other ways. Perhaps she or some enterprising patron could commission a set of unfinished copies of some classic paintings, and she could then set about finishing them in her inimitable style. Sell them, charge people to view them, sell prints and maybe even produce a nice coffee table book that we all can enjoy. Who wouldn't enjoy her takes on the great paintings in history?

And someone should really get her working on Gilbert Stuart's great masterpiece depicting first American president George Washington; as it stands, it is unfinished.

I would be proud to hang any of these on my wall.