....and Painter, Part II!

24" square canvas - $10.00

Brush and bundle value pack - $11.00

Series 1 black, blue and white acrylic - $18.00

Finding my old easel in the attic and setting it up in the Cloister with canvas, while playing the Velvet Underground and thinking of the girl with glasses sitting naked in my armchair - priceless!

Later on this evening...around 9:56, I put down the brush...the base coat is down on the canvas...a nice shade of blue. What a feeling after 9 years or so,to unroll the bundle of brushes,squirted out some cobalt blue, some white and some black on a paper plate, mix up the white and the blue...the black remains untouched, and to lay down the first stroke across the top of the canvas. I was uncertain at first what I would do, having not done this in a while, my hand started to ache a bit, an occasional sip of Mano a Mano temperanillo (from the La Mancha region, appropriately enough), a step back to make sure the color was still relatively consistent.

Every now and then I looked over to the armchair, expecting to see my muse sitting there, reading or just staring...earlier, I had seen in this neat little store on Lark Street a book of Playboy redheads from across the ages. I thought, what a neat book to have...especially for someone who considers the redhead crack cocaine. I did not buy the book, but you can be sure that the imaginary gal in the armchair, sitting curled up, reading "Antietam," or Yeats or even Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil, occasionally leaning forward to steal a sip of my wine, her glasses perched gently on her nose, was a redhead. And as the song played in the background, behind the glasses, one with pale blue eyes.

But back to the canvas. There is a little unevenness of color in the basecoat...next step is to envision the image, sketch it down a few times on paper and then pencil in the scheme.

Ahh but back to the redhead! Despite his troubles, Charlie Brown had it right...if you are going to have an unrequited, might as well make it a redhead!

The painter is back! And the poet and politician are now redeemed.