This tiring roller coaster... brought us back to a levelled plane.

Last sunday, I painted a portrait of him by the beach where we had sandwiches and apples. I was nursing a cold and the sea breeze wasn't helping much yet it was one of the nicer sunday i could remember in a while. I just wanted to paint something, anything. He convinced me to try painting him. I don't know how many times i refused but he wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Just try"

I was worried about getting it wrong. Doing a bad job and wreaking the painting. Worried about being laughed at for the sorry attempt. He insisted it would be fine. If anything, he would help me with it. Amidst all my protesting, i started to sketch and erase away my mistakes. Half-muttering to myself that i couldn't do it, he reached over and took over my canvas. I couldn't see if there was any likeness but he thought it was getting on fine and helped me to refine whatever i had on the canvas. By the time i started to paint, the need to be "correct" got alittle less. Before long, both of us were painting on the same portrait. I am not sure who paint what and where or who corrected whom but it became fun and enjoyable again. The mounting pressure of doing a "good" painting in the beginning slowly dissipated. He never once told me that i was doing a bad job and i stop looking at him as though he knew what he was doing. He was just trying, just like me. And what made it work, was that both of us tried without faulting each other in the process. It took a while for both of us to finally stop because there always something we wanted to fix, be it the eyes, the mouth or the rocks. We were so carried away, sitting on our little straw mat beneath the tree. I remembered what i knew of him from before. He could never quite tell when to stop for a painting. I think i'm quite the same way.

I can't say that the portrait of him by the beach was any good. But i can see a certain resemblence. I can see the rocks that both of us just gave up on and decided to go for the "impressionistic" method, the highlights on the face which we couldn't quite leave alone, the funny lips and the over-corrected eyes and the curly italian hair. I could see how the yellow streaks resembling matisse were not there.

"Maybe next time" he said. It was only a joke dear.
He never once laughed at me.

Would you like me to put the painting up?