Vicki Over Her Shoulder: A Sketch

She said, “I don’t know that you’ve captured the real me.
Is that really how you see me? Pink and orange?”

“It’s just an acrylic sketch,” I said. “I’m playing
with shapes. Playing with brushes. And playing with you.”

“You’ve given it a name,” she said. “And you started
by doing a rough drawing on an index card.
Ten shapes? Is that all it takes to paint me? Ten shapes?”

“I was playing with shapes,” I said. “But I can see
I made one mistake that wrecks this as a likeness.”

“What’s that?” she asked. “You mean the pumpkin orange hair?”

“In this acrylic sketch,” I said, “your mouth is closed.”

“Oh shut up!” she said. She pressed her lips together
to keep from smiling, but when she saw me staring
at the shape her lips made she opened her mouth wide
and stuck her tongue out at me. Then she turned, quickly,
so that her hair bounced brightly as she walked away.

She didn’t look back at me over her shoulder
but that’s okay. In the little painting, she does.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


I’m trying to experiment
with ways to get a handle
on doing stuff like this
that specifically avoid
anything ‘photographic.’

This is the index card version:




*


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