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Portraits of Words

It was all I ever wanted, to be a great artist, to be a painter as renowned as Picasso, Van Gough, Monet; an artist as talented as the Ninja Turtles. But as I grew up, I knew I “didn’t have the chops” to even touch what they were made of. Many people have the artists’ eye or the artists’ dreams, but I never had the artists’ fingers. But it doesn’t mean that I can’t have the chance now, only this one. After this I’ll go back to the rational world. “Paint what you see, not what you think you see. Paint what you feel.” Such were the words of my art teacher and that is what I’m trying to achieve. Portraits of people, everyday people who I see or, sometimes, don’t see. What do they look like to me, do they laugh too? People surround me, but sometimes I forget to look beneath the smiling facades. It means that I must think.

The contours of each person are different to the next and I only want to explore their presence that I’ve see so often or never felt before. It’s sad really. I’m only noticing now, when I’ve picked up my brush, my chance.

‘Round her face floated an aureole of gold and her eyes were a soft, cornflower blue. Now if only her heart were as soft as her eyes. Her smiles are always happy coloured and her laughs sweet. If only it weren’t but a façade. But maybe it isn’t. You never know, paint what you see, not what you think you see.

Brilliant red hair belies the warmth inside. He’s thorny so often that most think that he is the evil one, but he’s not. The red is not a bursting temper always aflame. It refects nothing of the sort. His eyes are a calm green, a cool blue, a quiet grey. The red is his passionate creativity. He’s only thorny because they see him that way. I painted a rose.

I see her as browns and golds; but her browns, mixed in her dark cascade and deep windows, are always rich, giving, artistic, as rich as chocolate that you have hear in her voice, her endorphic laugh. Always golds and richness; reminiscent of buried treasure, but she’s anything but buried.

His colours are made of hazy browns, not like her portrait though, I can’t see his colours clearly, they’re murky, but I only notice the sharp ones, sharp, quick, burning whites, more a jab with a fine brush than a stroke. The rest are like watercolour mixed not strong enough. He has little impression on me, save the little white jabs. But then there is the golden wit that’s so bright, it burns too; all his colours confuse me. I don’t like them.

He’s all gold and blue, not a slow blue; sky blue, forget-me-not blue, because who could forget such a blue; the sky blue of a breath of freedom. Golden happiness, he is only pure happiness, but texture, streaked with sunshine coloured laughter. He is sky coloured.

She is the black of obsidian and onyx, a black with texture and strength, the coiled dark power of a panther, self-confident and elegant. Black that is laced with brilliant yellows, always energetic and joyful, with an underlay of pink pearl. Powerful and loving. She is; she is.

She is a princess, the Princess is. I look at her and there is naught but silken gold and candy pink, a wisp of cool blue, unclouded clear, opulence shines through, her soft royal face, but she lacks the commanding blacks. There is a bit of sunshine, hanging just, just there, there. My princess glows, there is a glowing about her.

His portrait, I don’t paint with the normal materials, his is more mural comprised of grain, each a tan or golden brown, pale. He’s like the grain and the feeling you get as you slowly dip your fingers into a barrel and let them slip through your fingers as you cup them in your palm. He gives that calm feeling, green, though his eyes are hazel, it is mostly the soothing green that shows through.

He’s a bit of a rainbow, patient and supportive, kind and warm; but only half sometimes and a little too much others. He has the presence of a piece of modern art, all over the place. But whether he’s all or half, the colours are strong and profound, never weak, because he’s not a weak person. His colour seeps everywhere.

She’s green and blue, a cerulean warmth. I mostly see her eyes, which are so expressive. But there is something of a peach about her cheeks and her lips are a red that would shame the deepest rose. Her eyes, they’re Caribbean eyes, so warm and clear. She always says they have brown, but I see amber, ‘paint what you see, not what you think you see.’ Mellow amber that traps her soul.

I look back now and see, portraits. My words were my brushes, my imagination my paints and resources. Perhaps I did not create images of people as others see them, but, “Paint what you see, not what you think you see. Paint what you feel.” In these portraits I have imbued whom I see and that which I see within them. I could never be an artist reminiscent of the Ninja Turtles, Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael, so I am an artist in my own right. An artist of words, a poet.