Bling

As a painter, an artist if I may be so bold. I am familiar with various mediums, oil paint, watercolors, and especially acrylics. Typically I paint acrylics roughly classified as “Abstract”. Being about the same age as some very old trees it is a given that I am one old dog who is not going to learn new tricks. That’s basically how I approach life. I’m old I’m doing it my way.

Then a two-year-old came along. Sophie, 'the little princess'. This was the daughter of Charlotte, a fine young lady who gave me the nickname “Unc” ( I always hoped that meant uncle but you never know) when she was very young. Now I am just called “Unc” by everybody. Which is kind of cool. Well, this little two-year-old liked to play in a Cinderella costume. One day during the never-ending torment of “Covid Lock Down” little Sophie was prancing around outside across the street in her Cinderella outfit (must maintain that social distancing thing) and a castle came to mind. All little princesses named Sophie or otherwise need their own castle. I started making weird castle drawings in my sketchbook trying to work out the idea I saw in my head. I had square castles, “roundy” castles, tall short, and every other kind of castle. Finally, the image floating around in my head was more or less sketched out on paper in charcoal.

To me, this looked pretty cool and could be a finished piece, mainly because I am lazy and old. I went into my normal painting frenzy and promptly forgot all about the castle. I usually watch some Amazon Prime or Netflix anything but actually paint. Then one night I saw my sketch in a different light and that was it, canvas out paints out, and start painting. This was late one night but I did get the underpainting done in one sitting.

Several days later I told myself I should probably finish it before she turns three so I got back to work and finished it up. Looked really good, I thought. Later that night I was sitting in the dark looking at the castle and I thought to myself, it needed some shiny. There may have been a little bit of single barrel bourbon involved. (I won’t tell if you don’t)

Now to be honest I really don’t get the whole glitter shiny thing but I needed some shiny on the castle, it was for a two-year-old after all. I ordered up some glitter and waited anxiously for its delivery.

About a week later I got myself some glitter. I have never applied glitter before, as hard as that is to believe, so I did what everybody does and looked up 'glitter' on YouTube. There are some seriously strange things on YouTube, probably should have some kind of warning label. Not to protect children but to protect us old folks. I finally got enough info to give it a try.

I tend to be very subtle when painting, shading, concepts, color choices that kind of thing so I decided to be subtle with the glitter. After a little while, I had the subtle glitter on, waited for the Tacky glue to dry, and stood the painting up. Wow, that was disappointing. I sat there staring at a not shiny castle and wondering what I did wrong. The wife happened by and said the obvious as wives are wont to do, “needs more glitter”. Hard lesson to be learned.

You can not be subtle with glitter.

Apparently when it comes to this kind of thing more is better. Who knew?

I got crazy, I embraced my glitter side and went nuts, I added a ton of glitter and I must admit it did look better. I finished up a couple of things on the painting and signed it. Once it is signed it is done, that’s what I tell myself anyway.

The young lady Charlotte came by with Sophie, the little princess, so I could present the painting to her, on the front porch so as to keep some resemblance of social distancing, whatever...

This should have been a slam dunk, some goody points for “ol unc”. At the very least maybe some homemade cookies in my immediate future.

“Sophie, I hear you are a princess?" I asked.

“No” was the extremely curt reply. In that one word was a lot of subtexts. There went my chance of cookies.

After her mother regained her composure she said that yes you like to be a princess and Sophie agreed. Sophie pretty much says whatever you want her to, two-year-olds are a lot like myna birds.

Awkward perhaps but we got the presentation done and she was very excited. Hopefully, she won’t try to eat it. Honestly, she’s two years old and has no idea what the funny old man in a strange chair with wheels just gave her, but that’s Ok. We all stood around on the porch pretending to be six feet apart. As we were talking Charlotte started to laugh, a lot, she pointed at the painting.

“Unc learned to bling!”

So after all these years, things learned and forgotten, a hitch in the Navy, lost a leg even and all I get is “Unc learned to bling”. Seriously?

Well, it was kind of fun shaking the stuff out and now the wife gets to constantly tell me the stuff is “all over the place”. I don’t see it myself.

Since I have learned to bling I have lots of ideas for future projects, just wait for this year's Christmas cards.

That’s right. Unc can bling.