Understanding Life with Colors & Lines

Sitting among the tall weeds along the train tracks drawing the biggest grasshopper, the most royal I'd ever seen. I wondered what the black tar-like spit was that comes with his smile. Not till I drew this little creature did I really look at a grasshopper. Resting on my leg, he must have wondered why I was sitting on the hot rail just looking at him. The weeds were filled with grasshoppers. Mine seemed to be the biggest and very keen to know me. His legs were long and his knees faced the wrong way. The others around me were smaller and didn't stay on any one weed for very long. A king he was. He couldn't tell me his name, still I knew he understood me as I told him things.

A car horn and my name being called from across the field. My grasshopper was going to have to find a new friend. It was my Grandpa calling from his car, wanting me to come with him to St. Joe's Cemetery. Grandma's headstone was put in and flowers were needed to make her happy. On the floor in the back were geraniums and violets to be planted around the headstone. I wasn't much of a talker when I was a kid and neither was Grandpa. He did recognize my drawing as a grasshopper. I liked it when people recognized the things I drew. He spent some time looking at my drawings, asking if I were going to be an artist, handing my sketchbook back to me. We rode up Route 25 in silence, his car smelled of machine oil and paint. I wasn't big enough to see out the window, only the electric lines and tree branches as we passed under them were visible. The iron arch of the gate meant we were there. Passing the grotto with its statue of St. Joseph, we rolled to a stop. Grandpa was ever so quiet getting the flowers out from the backseat. Pointing out a fox watching us, he handed me my sketchbook from the car with a smile. Before I found a blank page the fox, bored with us moved on.

Trowel in hand, I made small holes for the violets and geranium. Paintings for me are of those treasured moments in my life, portraits of shared experiences with wisdom from the past and dreams for the future. A pregnant model or a weathered face inspires me as I understand life with colors and lines.

Do Not Get Out of the Car

Long viridian shadows stretch out across dew covered lawns. Sunflowers are lifting their heads in search of the warming rays of the sun. Dads are sipping coffee at red lights, as kids, still in bed, plan their day. Summer jobs cutting lawns and afternoons swimming at the stone quarry, seeing will dive off the high tower and who will climb back down.  

Tom, the park policeman, unlocks the Eastside gates to Fabyan Park. He opens all the gates to all parks that line the Fox Valley. “Painting or drawing today?” he inquired, waving me into the park. Passing the weather beaten statue of Chief Black, I take my parking spot facing the river in front of the climbing tree, as I call them. More horizontal than vertical, it's perfect for joggers and runners to rest on, who I then sketch. Mothers pushing strollers move to one side to let the runners trying to keep fit pass by. I’ve got a handful of peanuts for the squirrels, dropped out the window, and some corn for the ducks. My back up models in case people don't come. Sometimes the squirrel waits at the wrong blue van, takes him a minute to realize it before he scampers over to me. 

My mind gets its workout as I sketch a young lady in her early twenties. She arrived with four boys, all about ten. She is in a light cream colored business suit, baiting fishing hooks with large nightcrawlers she pulls from a coffee can. Not the ideal outfit for baiting hooks. As I sketch them I imagine a story for them. 

My student arrives at the same time a bus load of kids arrives. I invite my student, Grace, in and explain we have to draw from inside my van. It's part of my lesson, I tell Grace, but she insists on getting out to draw. Within minutes we are surrounded by kids asking questions and wanting us to draw them. I drew them as a demonstration for Grace.       

It did not end there. The next day at the park a policeman knocked on my window and asked for my phone number. That afternoon I got a call from one of the kids I had drawn. She wanted me to do a painting of her brother.  The next day that policeman was parked  in front of her house, waving to me as I walked up to the front door. This ten year old invited me in, leaving the door open. Then came her story. Her brother, a student at the airforce academy  was driving home for a visit when he was killed by a drunk woman as he was helping another woman change a tire. When the family went to make arrangements to bring him home, their house burnt down and they lost everything. Only two wallet size pictures remain of him. She wanted me to do his portrait from those small, worn photos as a gift for her mom.

So, do not get out of the car to draw kids. Yes I did the portrait, and no I did not charge her.