Friday, November 10, 2017

Whidbey Island - Day 2

I tried so hard to stay up to a reasonable hour, confused by the dark evening, but I finally gave in to travel exhaustion at 9pm and crawled to bed. It was too firm. Wondered if I could make a nest out of pillows. Then I climbed up to the loft bed and realized it had a thick down mattress pad on it. VICTORY. I think people who sleep on hard mattresses are noble and agile, like mountain lions resting on big rocks, but I am a soft burrowing creature. I thunked down into the pillowy top bunk like a brick and slept  until the sun came up. It was a miracle. Or the NyQuil. I am battling the onset of a chest cold, because of course I am.

By the time it was light out, I was almost late. I pulled on my sweater and boots and coat and hat and mittens and started walking down to town, feeling very pleased with my winter gear and thinking I probably looked just like a local resident. While I was huffing up at the sky, trying  to see my own breath, a man jogged by in little running shorts and a long-sleeved tee. He waved and smirked, amateur. Whatever. I am not that devoted to blending in.

The workshop was beautiful. We drank coffee and watched Elizabeth Zanzinger demonstrate her methods throughout the morning, then drew numbers for our easel positions and spent the afternoon trying to do the same. My initial sketch was okay. And then I ruined it. Pretty badly. But the good news is that I didn’t paint appreciably worse than everyone else.

To console ourselves, we mobbed down to the seafood joint and drank beer and ate clams and laughed like fools. I have made a deal with myself to only buy one meal a day, so that meal can be fucking phenomenal. This is a good arrangement. The food is worth remembering for the rest of your life, and you’re hungry enough to eat all of it without a scrap of guilt. I mopped up sauce with table bread and I ATE IT.

Tomorrow we will have more work time, since today was mostly demo, so we will have many more hours to make our shitty paintings. I’m ready.

It was an amazing day with amazing people. I don’t know how I’m going to get back on a plane and leave this place. 

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