dropping off the painting
I haven't been back to the restaurant for a few weeks, 6 maybe, I've been haunted by the painting of the owner's daughter in my kitchen.
But it's time, and I'll be damned glad to be rid of it.
G is back, the G who walked out the few days before my final departure, he completes the team: Everyone is now back that has left (in the front at least), and there are some new faces as well. I catch up with the boys, the Boss's nephew and G, the girl I trained up as my replacement (looking much slimmer and quite attractive, exercise, it would seem, agrees with her), the kitchen and the suppliers are the same, we drink coffee, chat, gossip about who's come and gone (nobody important), laugh about G's departure, and like Franco his return.
The Owner returns, and there's the customary Christmas pleasantries, I give him his painting.
There's the puzzlement on his face and I explain that it's his daughter. "See" I say "2 Eyes....how many does your daughter have?..." And I go through my trademarked spiel until he's forced to concede there's a resemblance.
"Maybe" I suggest "Your daughter should have plastic surgery..." but he doesn't hear me.
"Wait" he says and whistles "Until my wife sees this....".
The boss's nephew, he likes my stuff, he wants me to do his portrait next...
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The Owner's Inflatable Daughter
(Woke up at 6:00, thought it was 8:00, the coffee was already on when I discovered my mistake. Drank the coffee, attempted to nap. To little avail.)
I've got the painting - the Christmas gift - the painting I did of the Owner's daughter and I've popped around the restaurant to give it to him. Only I've leaned it badly in the back of the car and now there's a big dent in the canvas.
And I'm pulling it out of the car to look at the dent and I see that there's a tear in the canvas, but the Owner's there and I'll just give it to him anyways.
Now the stretcher bars fall out, and I'm holding the canvas in my hands, rolling it up and he's reaching for it to unroll it, only now it's a sheaf of unrelated sketches and drawings, the painting's disappeared completely and I'm rifling through these sketches, looking for it, but it's vanished, gone, pfft....
(And today is the day I pop around the restaurant to drop off the painting, this means something, but what?...)
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Facebooking to end Child Abuse
There's a rather amusing guide to facebook portraits here: http://www.fastcompany.com/1692957/facebook-profile-picture-flowchart
Amusing because it's not only funny, it's also somewhat true. Spot on, in fact. What it doesn't cover, however, is the use of avatars - pictures that aren't portraits.
That's OK - I can cover that in a few lines:
#1) He/She is wanted by the police or doesn't want to be recognized and identified, which would result in them being wanted by the police.
#2) I'm butt-ugly and would prefer a picture of a potted plant to my actual face. So would my friends.
Now recently on facebook there was a little "viral" campaign that saw a lot of users replace their photos with cartoon characters, ostensively to end child abuse.
I'm not making this up.
Purportedly you were drawing attention to the plight of children all around the world, and marked yourself as someone not only politically correct but as morally superior to all your friends who didn't have a cartoon avatar (obviously pedophiles, every one of them, probably a good time to drop them...).
It gets better.
Fox News (or some equivalent) picks up the story and suggests that the cartoon avatars is just what the pedophiles want, as now they can message their little friends with complete anominity.
Remember, I'm not making this up.
I have something to say about this. What can I say about this? How do otherwise perfectly intelligent people get on board with something like this? Where, exactly, is that leap of reasoning that goes "If I just replace my facebook photo with a picture of a cartoon character that I like it will help to end child abuse..."?
I mean, really?
Probably you have a few friends that did this. Sadly, me too.
Me, I'd just stop communicating with them for a few months, then drop them on the Facebook friend swap.
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It really shouldn't need this much explaining.
4 Paintings this Christmas. "Everyone loves something handmade" I said to myself, the cheap justification, the real reason is that nobody I know needs a bloody thing and I'm kinda broke, we're all at that age where if we want it, we have it, gifts are merely the token junk that simply cycle through our hands on the way to the thrift shop, the obligatory commercial spirit of Christmas.
I can do better than that. I'll make something.
The dogs, 1 to my brother, 1 to my sister, My brother, he was polite and looked interested, promised to hang it on a spot on the wall. There's an art to gracefully recieving the handmade gift and he's got it down. My sister, probably no less graceful but fortunate to be out of town this Christmas, she got lucky in that she can pull a wider variety of faces when she opens hers, I won't be there to see. I wish I was there to see.
Now there's 2 paintings left to finish, Christmas has been postponed at the restaurant, for my friend Milan, until I finish these 2 paintings, and I'm running out of time, out of excuses.
Procrasturbation
There's a sale at Kensington Art Supply
Npw all I need is a palette but I'm paused at the idea of saving money, I need some more acrylics and the prices are good and even better on sale...
It's a tiered sale, meaning the more you spend, the more you save, 10% off to $50.00, 15% off to $100.00, up to 25% off at $200.00, You'll save the most if you don't spend a thing but most customers tend to forget that. It destroys the fun.
Now really, I have more paint and supplies than I'll probably use in a year so with great effort I just purchase the palette, and check (furtively) when the sale ends; maybe I can come back...
My Way
Every artist has their own way of doing things. Me, I look at my subject, count the number of Noses, Eyes, Mouths, Ears, then use that to build up my painting. Not that that's the right way or the wrong way, it's just my way. Every artist has their own way.
Now I notice that the owner's daughter's eyes are crooked. I should have noticed this a long time ago. Still, she has 2 (and here I check my notes: yep, 2 eyes), and even if they look a bit like they're speeding towards her nose (1 nose, yep, it's right in my notes) he should be happy.
Except.
Except that the girl looks like his daughter if she'd been converted into an inflatable sex doll and then painted by me. I removed all the wrinkles, creases from the face, blended the colors into a homogenous mass because that's what little kids are like, all pudgy and blobby and now the painting looks as if I've painted an overinflated sex doll. I make a note, that should be a different series of paintings. And they're cheap models and fun to party with after.
Now there's Milan.
The colors grow muddy on the palette. Bright colors lose their lustre, blues and red mix and form irridescent puddles of purple, at certain moments, when I squint and turn my head from the canvas and catch it out of the corner of my eye I can see a resemblance, but it vanishes when viewed head on. A friend that looks sortof like a friend but mostly like a feared enemy or a red-indian - too heavy on the Cadmium Red, I think, and I take an old sock and begin to rub things out.
In the meantime I think of alternate titles for it:
"Definitely not Milan" and I try to gloss over it's many imperfections with lines like "It sure took a lot of paint" or "I'll bet you don't have anything like this" but I have a feeling those just might be his lines as well, and I've got to leave him room for something to say.
It really shouldn't need this much explaining.
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