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Sunday, October 24, 2010

She's Not Quite Herself



She wanted ten pencil portraits of loved ones featured on the dedication page of the her book. She thought portraits would be better than words. The book was about her art after all, and though portraits weren't her thing, having a few did illustrate the ability. When she went through her files, however, all she found were portraits she had done of the grandchildren, her husband and just one of her daughter in-laws. And it was the end of October. So much for having the book in print and in her hands by the holidays. Unless she made a concentrated effort...


The family photo album was the place to start. She spent most of Saturday carefully examining each picture. All of them were snapshots of people busy living life--looking out at the falls, contemplating what they were going to order off the menu, caught in animated conversations or standing like statues while she coaxed them to smile and yell "cheeseburgers." By the time Wyatt Earp was riding off after shooting the last of the Claytons, she had come to the conclusion that her missing loved ones would have to be pictured informally doing whatever they were doing. Maybe she could get them doing things together, which would be more space efficient for the layout.


This was what I did yesterday. I looked for photographs. And I really need to take some of Mrs. JR when we go to the wedding in June. She's rarely pictured and when she is, she's in a pensive mood. The free hand study sketch above was the only one I could find where I could see her full faced. It's still not her, but it's better than a drawing I did a few months back. I learned some things about her sturcture last night while watching Tombstone.

Did you notice I wrote the first two paragraphs in the third person? Honey pointed out that this blog is really a personal art journal. It's about I,I,I and me, me, me. He's so quick sometimes, I can't keep up with him. Of course it's a personal art journal, that's why I started it. It keeps me drawing. It's gotten me back into painting. I'm not encouraging anybody else to draw and paint. This blog is selfishly me.

When I want to write a book book, instead of just put together a collection of my better blogs, it certainly won't be about a gal looking through her family album and noticing she didn't have the right pictures. It would have mystery and sex and strangers meeting on a train going no where with no stops and no exits. Scary stuff. Fun stuff. And my main character would have a name. Ignacius T. Merryweather. His friends called him Iggy. He was a quiet guy, used to be a banker, till bankers were getting shot in the head and dumped into swamps by angry town folks forced out of their homes and into the streets by the very guys who gave them a mortgage in the first place.

5 comments:

  1. Dear Linda,
    Oh, I really enjoy your writing so much. I think I saw your portrait work on "Honey." Regarding the paragraphs, mmmm, in my eyes, "Linda in a different dress." Changing a style is not an easy job, even for professionals. I felt your great love for Honey and family! But please keep this blog for your sanctuary like "I'm the queen of this kitchen!!" As for the book, sounds nice. Already I giggled. Hopefully, Iggy with a cheerful family name would "safely" get through economic recession.
    Cheers, Sadami
    (my computer works, but beeps! I have to work on it more tomorrow!)

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  2. Your hubby is right!. Do u think u talk in 3rd person because you are afraid to say "I"? that it would bring too much attention to you?
    BTW this is nothing personal, but I've never been able to get myself to like drawings of people, especially if they're head-on... It just seems so posed... Don't get me wrong, your drawings of your grandkids I like and the one of yourself... I like the more spontaneous drawings of people..

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  3. This study is just a step towards making a "portrait." Doing it familiarizes me with her form. The more I draw her, the looser the drawing will get, for I'll know the key points that make her her. There is a better snapshot of her, I'll move on to. I like it because it caught her in a melancholy mood. She, however, may not. But it's my book.

    I always write in the first person. I just wrote in the third to satisfy Honey who thinks when I use I and me that I'm much too open about our personal lives. He thinks that writing in the third person, somehow makes the writing less so. I think art blogs should be in the first person; art is a personal thing. I was playing around.

    As for Mr. I.T. Merryweather, the x banker, He is a fictional character I made up as I went along--though there was a banker who was shot execution style in our area. By whom nobody knows. My heart goes out to his family. he looked like a nice guy.

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  4. I did notice the third person thing. A journal is a me-me-me kind of thing and I think that's OK :-)

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  5. ME TOO. That's how it should be. My Honey just thinks I get too personal. So I wrote the blog impersonally, to show him how dull it was.

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