-- neither her palette nor her palate, either. (This delectable dish is from a little-known New York City eatery -- fine dining with all the comforts of home).
This "Pallet" is a nearby coffee shop, which I regularly pass on my way to the library or grocery store. In ordinary times, its window bench is fully occupied with customers variously engrossed in laptops, cells, books, newspapers, or just their own dreamy ruminations.
Every time I've walked by, I've mentally collected a couple of figures for follow-up memory drawing. The people at the window bench seem most often to be on their own -- but elbow to elbow, they often make accidental twosomes that I've thought of as "Improbable Pairs," a title I might someday use for a series of related paintings.
With the coffee shop closed and no new subjects, I went back to my sketchbook for some earlier models.
They were there on different days. He was rough-and-tumble; she was a dreamy Alice in Wonderland. An improbable pair, to be sure -- but she's thinking things over and, as I've called it, "Considering the Possibilities."
There's ample elbow room for improvement, but I'm calling this "DONE." . The guy's face was even more unusual than in my small memory sketch -- he had quite a flat broad forehead and widely spaced eyes, which I kept fiddling with. One day, when I was still working on it, my daily walk took me by a front-yard statue of St. Francis. OMG -- the Pallet guy *did* look a bit like him!
And St. Francis reminded me of a few characters in an article I came across, "Most Bizarre and Completely Outlandish Art Fails of All Time." It's hilarious, if not here and there a bit tragic --with almost unbelievable examples of art restorations that have totally screwed up the original work. Pallet Guy and St. Francis remind me a bit of #5 and #6 in the line-up.
Meanwhile, here in The Yellow House, time for a fresh start -- it's always a work-in-progress.
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