Portrait of a Chipmuck Arm Akimbo

I recently saw the Rembrandt exhibit at the Minneapolis Art Institute.  It largely contained paintings of his students which he could legally sign as his own.  I found myself studying his style and tried to replicate it here.  Rembrandt apparently had a sly sense of humor, so I'd like to think he'd be amused with this even though it's a parody.  What surprised me the most was that many of the paintings had only small areas of great detail and the rest of the figure was not fully realized.  The backgrounds tended to be simple gradients of dark to light as though photographed in a studio with only one key spot light.  This was done in Corel Painter 11.

This was a true collaboration with Sam.  He came up with the Olympic description seen on the right and I added the cartoon visual idea.  Did everyone "get" the visual joke?  I'm never always sure how much I need to say for a joke to work.  People's comedic sophistication continues to evolve but not always evenly.  Sam's generation will understand a joke with less information than maybe my mother-in-law's.  On the other hand, I do this largely to amuse myself, so what do I care.  Well, I do care as it's no fun if nobody gets your joke.