The Portrait Artist

We sat at a train station together. I never interacted with her but being a sketch artist, I did small sketches of her face while we waited. Every once in a while, she would look in my direction if I had spent more time staring versus sketching. which would redirect me back to sketching.

Then the train came, we both embarked and my small black book was back in my pocket. A chance meeting with a woman that would change my life.

It had been several weeks since our encounter when I thought I had seen her walking on the street. The memory of our meeting drove me to find my coat and dig out that small black book.

Unfortunately, my sketch did not capture her face, quite as beautifully as I remembered it. She had very long red hair that twisted in tendrils along her blue dress. Again, the graphite didn’t do her justice as she was a woman of many colors.

So I started a small canvas to capture her more perfectly. I even looked online for women that I could used to fill in the missing pieces, but there were no faces that could match the feeling she evoked.

One night, after a long bout with the painting and feeling like I had not made much progress, I fell into a deep sleep. Perhaps it was the turpentine and linseed oil but I had one of those toxic sleeps like those induced by a chemical.

I woke up in a train station. It was very familiar as was the woman who stood on the platform. She was making sketches, she would stare at me for a while then go back to sketching.

Her hair was long and red-I could smell cinnamon and burning wood, the epitome of autumn. Red oak leaves blew across the concrete and in between her sketching she offered a smile.

I walked across the platform toward her and she seemed embarrassed as she put her small white sketch pad into her purse.

“You’re not the only artist my friend” she smiled and we both shared an inside joke as only the two could understand.

Almost by reflex, I felt my pocket for the sketchpad but it was gone.

There was very little small talk, or little that I remember, more than the weather or how we were feeling, we talked about art. It seemed appropriate at the time.

“You didn’t get all the details you know, you should have approached me, I was showing a little bit of shame but still could not produce the sketchpad.

Her skin was white, pale white and she smelled like lavender. I had a strange feeling I was missing my train but at the moment, she was all that mattered to me and I was having a hard time remembering where I was going in the first place.

Still our meeting had a certain urgency as I collected all her details I needed for a sketch I was destined to create.

Her eyes were a sleepy blue, they vibrated next to vibrant red curls which she had pinned up on her head in half done updo. She had a wicked grin like someone who knew more then they were telling.

After we talk about art some, she shamelessly produced the sketchbook from her purse and thumbed through it, several pages were sketches of me and others were sketches I had remember doing. As I showed her my curiosity, she would quickly turn the page.

She said it’s all in the details, much like our lives. This struck me as it was something I had previously written about, how portraits are unforgiving. It’s not simply capturing what’s there, it’s more capturing what is behind the eyes, that is what truly separates a portrait from a caricature.

But how do you collect and press details without being too forward or obnoxious? I questioned her.

“Like Staring?” she smiled.

Yes, like staring. I admitted, remembering our previous encounter.

Does a portrait artist need to know their subject more then just at the surface, I asked.

How many people actually know anyone she replied and I didn’t have much too offer to agree or disagree.

“A portrait is just a skeleton of an image, the human touch is the part of the portrait that is not existent but instead inferred. The eyes are the only thing that speaks clearly, all the other elements of a portrait support and echoe what the eyes say.

This is why a portrait artist must know more than the mechanics of flesh and bone structure, it is the way your subject moves their hands, how the hair interacts with the eyes.

She was so eloquent in her explanation, I felt like I should be taking notes.

“How long have you been doing portraits” I asked.

She replied, “I think you know the answer to that question.

Suddenly in the darkness of the tunnel an ugly sound of a train, it had always been a bit romantic for me but at that moment, it spoke endings and finality.

She got on, I still questioned where I was going. She left me with the notebook she had, with one last comment about art. “Inside you’ll find yourself, it is the only way to truly capture my portrait.

Just as the sound of the train filled the platform and the smoke cleared the colorful autumn leaves onto the track, I woke.

The smell of turpentine was strong, I could almost taste it. On the canvas that was now staring at me as I woke, it was a portrait of myself sketching her.

I reached for her sketchpad, realizing it was just a dream and noticed my sketchbook was on the floor next to me. In the drawing that previously filled one of the pages, now there was a clarity.

I jumped to my feet and continued the process, I think it was very late in the evening as everything was still., I painted until the morning sun lit the room and the canvas took on a light of it’s own.

It was her, in all of her glory. The details came so quickly, I had to keep up with mixing the oils and medium. I could remember her words and the idea of the details, but I still was missing something, very distinct in the portrait.

I brought the portrait to almost perfection but I could not capture her eyes the way I remembered her.

After several weeks of working back and forth and even scraping away the paint on her face to start over, the painting sat unfinished for days which became months, then years.

I lost the inspiration that started it and it was obvious, I was stuck in the middle of a portrait with details I couldn’t explain.

It became the project that stared at me in the dark. No matter the intent, the inspiration was gone.

Many paintings had gone through underpaintings, overlays and signatures and that great portrait gathered dust as it sat through many sunrises and sunsets, a moment captured and lost.

I don’t know how many years it had been but as I sat waiting for a train into the city, a woman with short red hair walked up to me. Gone was my sketchbook and even the idea of sketching seemed foreign to me.

I was in the middle of a very difficult divorce and beginning a new job when she walked up to me. Her eyes were worn, a pale blue that complemented her red faded locks, now short and curled around her face.

We laughed, as two laughing at an inside joke. We both rode on the train and we talked about our lives and the struggles we had gone through. We embraced for the first time after having a connection that was a bit surreal, she smiled, “nothing like the real thing? We both laughed”

In that short train ride, I came to know my future wife and I became a portrait artist. Her portrait became real both in the depth of paint and reality, There’s nothing like the real thing.