Hi William, Not only do I not mind that you're illustrating what you had in mind, I find the fact that we can do that one of the most satisfying things about LuLa. I've dealt with other fora where this is prohibited, and requiring contributors to try to explain what they mean instead of demonstrating it in a digital environment where criticism is invited and demonstration is easy seems to me the height of asininity.
But I don't agree with the crop. Cropping the arm kills the triangular composition of the picture and turns it into a fairly ho-hum face shot. As Andrew pointed out I could drop the saturation on the blue stool or even clone it out, but it's far enough out of the zone of focus back there that it doesn't bother me. It even helps to complete the triangle. You might want to do some reading on the elements of composition and spend some time looking at well-composed paintings. I know that it's all the rage to talk about violating the "rules" of composition, but you can't really do that until you know what those rules are.