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Trying to Get a Line

21/5/2018

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This morning, probably the last cool day of spring, I pulled on a new pair of leggings and jikes! -- weren’t the ridiculous things at least six inches too long.  Again.  Now, before you decide that I am shrinking at a rapid rate, I’m actually not.  Yes, I have settled half an inch like our house but that’s not the issue. 

Girls are getting longer or at least Costco thinks they are.  Most of the food on its shelves would argue for an increase in width but these legging, like jeans, are both skinny (fine) and long long long (less than fine).  I feel a bit like Macbeth, who began to look like a dwarf in a giant's robe.  Unfortunately I was raised not to waste things, so this unexpected bonanza of banded fleece and spandex demands to be put to use  — a cash holder which a mugger wouldn’t find? a hammock for a pet chipmunk who needed a snooze?  a stash for Lindt chocolate?

I guess I will have to settle for warmer ankles but it did make me think about line length again.

Long limbs are enchanting in themselves - witness a baby fawn wobbling on those impossible stilts.   Having had no luck at all seeing a fawn this spring I have several alternatives in mind, both of which centre on curvilineal elements.  I’m still toying with Cathedral Grove’s skyscraper ancients wrapped in curling mosses, but perhaps there is also a portrait gestating.

Aisha, my young sweet-tempered neighbour, sat for me this week.  We had good light and I did a series of  head shots beside different windows inside.  (Once the canopy opens, it is difficult to avoid dappled shade outside, even if you don’t notice it at first)   The results were okay but lacked a relaxed feel.   Finally, we went in the studio and while I was changing cameras, Aisha, who is wonderful with children and dogs, hauled Theodore up onto the love seat, where she whispered sweet nothings into his enormous ears and stroked him gently.  Theodore is all boy and so at first he put up a token resistance, facing away and pretending to ignore her.


Then voila!  As Aisha leaned forward to stroke him behind his Dumbo ears, he melted, slumping into a stupefied mid-distance gaze.  The late-afternoon light warmed both of them and the graceful line I’d been seeking established itself.   And that, I think,  is what I shall paint. 

​In the meantime, here is Himself alone.  Skye terriers are all about the lines.



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