LINE OF BOAT AND BOAT LINES

LINE OF BOAT AND BOAT LINES

By Andy Weddington

Tuesday, 12 January 2021

boat - a small vessel for travel on water (Merriam-Webster)

Yesterday a significant anniversary for family. 

Three, on behalf of many, saluted our late honoree. 

We ventured to a favorite local frozen custard stand for a small concrete with dark chocolate shavings mixed in.

The workers wear ballcaps with simple logo - a concrete with plastic spoon jabbed in but the cup upside down (proof of concrete). 

Bundled in hats and coats to ward off damp cold, we first sat outside before retreating to car.  

In past years two of us would already be in warmer clime - me sitting or standing on or near dock studying boats.

And drawing or painting the line of boat; beautiful line.

Now two decades past with hundreds and hundreds of boats studied and sketched - in pencil, pen, and marker and painted in watercolor, acrylic, and oil. 

Boat up close.

Boats afar. 

Single and groups.

Next to palette, a water jar.  

At some point long ago came "Aha," make one or two boats and let simple shapes make all others afloat.

Boat tied to dock behaves differently than boat anchored in bay. 

A boat tied to dock painted years ago came to mind early today. 

That boat modeled for me - demo of kind. 

Beautiful line.

And many boat lines.

With nothing more to say, brush into that water jar.

An observer spoke, "My goodness, beautiful! I love how simply you painted everything. But my husband would not like the missing lines - he could detail (for you) the purpose of each."

Not a boater, all the lines superfluous, distracting, detail; only a few necessary to complement beautiful line of boat. 

A painting of boat is not boat. 

Through the years have come generous offers for that painting. Politely refuse I do - for what is still learned from studying the original and thinking about the observer's by-the-way but oh-so-important comment.

Lately, for now demanding family duties never once considered; thinking about family and our late honoree; missing simpler time in shorts and t-shirt sketching and painting boats; troubled by the boat we're all in today though rowing not in synch; and the loud tick-tocking grandfather clock, a conclusion ... 

A line as simple and beautiful as line of boat cannot be said, cannot be written. 

So, much less of this, much more of that. 

See you, perhaps, near or on the dock sometime; out the Welcome mat.