“Hey, you’re an artist. Want to paint our picture?”
The kid who stays at the summer cottage near ours was
playing on the beach with his cousins, and saw me arrive with my painting
gear. They stay in their place, which
their grandfather rents in July and August, for his extended family, and we
stay in ours, bigger, but across the road from the lake. We share a beach,
along with the property owners and their 29 grandchildren. The lake is plenty
big enough for all of us. And the
activity makes perfect subject matter
for me to paint.
“Let me finish the background,” I tell them, as I dab on more blue on the
water. They are flabbergasted I am
saying yes, the lady who they haven’t talked to before. “I’ll call you when I am ready.”
About five minutes later, the four boys line up in front of
the water. I expect them to stand still
for five minutes max, but they are serious about this group portrait. Counting the minutes, I opt for gesture,
hair color and bathing trunk color to define each one. They are still not too fidgety at twelve
minutes, but at fifteen I wrap it up and turn the canvas their direction.
“WOW, it’s beautiful, that’s great (and other squeals of
delight)”. I tell them it is for them,
for their house, and hand it to the brave boy (maybe 11 years old) who asked me
to paint it.
They return ten minutes later, asking for a signature, awash
in thank-yous. “I seen your work before,” the brave boy tells me,” in your
house, you painted picture of my aunt and her dog. It was great, too.”
It’s all an artist lives for.
Yellow Sailboat Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic on canvas 16 x 20
$275.00
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