Wednesday, December 15, 2010

WHEN DO COWS LOOK LIKE DASCHUNDS?

 When is a cow not a cow?  Okay here's a riddle, What do you call a cow that is too long? A dachshund! How does that fit in here? The story goes like this. Tim's turn to drive I think but it doesn't matter. He is driving because we are trying to paintoutdoors this winter in his older car. He got the heater fixed along with the alternator and battery after lightning hit a tree and I think his car. The car, well, because it was broken after the storm and lightning struck  with the car only yards away from the tree. I've included the cave painting because that's what we felt like we were trying to paint in a sedan with me in the backseat and Tim in the front.Tim gets set up a little quicker as he has his paper on the board and he only has to open his two boxes of pastels, the hard pastels and the soft pastels. Me on the other hand,in the backseat am trying to balance my canvas on my knees, get my paints out of the bucket, pour water into a pail and sort out my brushes. This doesn't include squeezing paint into my lidded palette box. Soooo,we get started. Tim is a 'pastel pecker' that is, he applies his pastels like a woodpecker taps on a tree, no 'not taps' bangs on the tree. Me in the back am trying to lay down a brush stroke with the canvas bobbing like a red and white float at the end of a cane pole with a bluegill on the other end. I start laughing and can't stop. He starts laughing and pretty soon the windows fog up Now, a truck pulls up and a man rolls down his window."Hey you guys ok? Need any help." We have pulled off the main road which is out in the county somewhere. It's a lane, more like it. Tim tells him "no." we are just painters. The guy nods. Tim holds up his pastel and the guy is satisfied. He pulls away and Tim and I bust out laughing cause it looks suspicious! Hell, now how else are we going to paint outdoors with out people coming along and asking us if we are all right with the windows fogged up and the car running with the heater blasting away. I'm getting so hot that I have to lay everything on the seat where there is little room to do anything like paint and open the door to strip off my two sweatshirts and climb back in. Guess whose laughing? A few minutes later Tim starts laughing again and tells me his cows look like horses. Mine, I reply look like pigs. Well, we start laughing again and I swear we haven't had a drop of liquor. Those cave painters making cows I mean "aurachs" on the cave walls must have had some fun. Up on scaffolding brushing raw pigment onto the rock surface a few inches inches in front of their noses with little room to move around and see what they are doing.Add to this a crappy little fat wick lamp supplying a 1/4 candlewatt. "Hey Grok,do my horses look like horses? Smorg falls off the scaffolding laughing at Grok because his horses look like pigs and dachunds. That accounts for the broken arm and the three scratches of red on the wall as Smorg angrily jabs at the wall with a loaded brush in his hand as he is falling. And you now know why painting outdoors in the winter is a test of endurance and the those big muscles on the sides of our heads that make us all laugh.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You seem to have "Monet-ized your cows.
Looks a little bit like haystacks with livestock.