The closer the better

I was just looking at an artist (Angie Renfro's) site
http://angierenfro.com/ and I love her paintings of
birds. But her birds are seen the way we do see them
-- strung across streets on telephone wires, and at a distance.

What's your perspective on life? I can never get close
enough. Many of my figures have their heads cut off
because no matter how large the canvas is, I can't seem
to fit the whole person on. Some of my favorite portraits
of the past year are just heads on large canvasses.

But today we followed the grey highway for five hours
down to Windsor, Ontario right across from Detroit, Michigan,
to pick up our son from university. The sun came out
and it was very warm.

I love the vast vistas of flat farmland as you get
close to Windsor. The land stretches way off to the
horizon and bright green bands of new crops colour
the scenery. Trees wear a new spring green, and the
sky was a soft blue, with wispy clouds.

Drawing on a Starbuck's napkin

I did my drawing today on a napkin -- the only
thing I could find to draw on for a minute in
the car, while an extremely patient father in the
vehicle in front of us tried to pack all of his daughter's
accumulated possessions of the school year into
one small van. Eventually he succeeded.

Then we spent five hours driving back with our
happy son in tow. A delicious detour to a super
restaurant in Port Stanley topped off the day.

I can't wait to paint tomorrow.

Have an enjoying-both-the-close-up-and-the-distant-view day