The night Picasso came to stay

Are we to paint what’s on the face, what’s inside the face, or what’s behind it?
Pablo Picasso

Once upon a Friday night, TSH and myself decided to honour the dragon. As many of you may know, we have been trying to bring some creativity into our lives so we turned off the TV, turned on some Serge Gainsbourg and tried to get artsy. We’re musicians, by the way.

Game on! Who is the best Parisian sketch artist? Who will be crowned the next Matisse of the House? Points were to be awarded for accuracy, neatness, technique, creativity and, as time was ticking on, speed in execution.

Bring out the A3 artists sketch paper. Bring out the water-colour pastel crayons, oui. Bring out the wine for TSH. Bring out the cordial for me.

Task 1: Draw a portrait of the other person.

A seemingly easy task. But not if the last time you put pencil to paper was when Donkey Kong Junior was cool. This became evident right from the start when I could plainly see that my ‘sketching’ contained a vast lack of any skill set that would allow me to win this tour de creativité. Sometimes I amaze myself.

I was unable to establish nor maintain anything that resembled scale or proportion and my burnishing technique should have remained just that, burnished.

We weren’t meant to take a peak at what each other was drawing, but of course I did. I noticed that TSH was actually quite a little sketcher and that I was sure to loose. There was only one thing left to do, I poured him another glass of wine.

Verdict: TSH thinks that I look like a 60 year old transvestite art critic, who votes to the right. I think that TSH looks like a 70 year old man whom has a chin or a mouth, but definitely not both.

My mouthless husband

Winner: TSH

Task 2: Draw my mum’s dog in the style of Picasso.

Artistic Brilliance

Pissed off that I didn’t win task 1, I concentrated even more. I let the creative juices flow through me, I needed to come up with gold.

Again, my soft sketch pencils in F to HB range were failing me, I was in trouble as soon as crayon hit paper. Looking casually over my shoulder I noticed that TSH standard tripod grip around his crayon was faring him well, where as my extended reverse vice like quad grip was getting me nowhere.

Winner: TSH

Verdict:

TSH is a little bugger. He nailed this one, got the dog bit right and got the Picasso bit brilliantly. I on the other hand, drew something that might be a dog, but could also be a rat.

Picasso?Well I was aiming for his synthetic cubism period but came up with something from his daycare era.

Task 3: Draw a Waratah, a beautiful Australian native flower, in the one-stroke Tao style.

Perhaps our most difficult challenge yet. If I couldn’t draw an apt picture of a dog, how the hell could I come up with the goods for this ancient and most beautiful method of drawing?

Once crayon hit paper, that was it, you were not allowed to lift it up, everything had to be in one stroke. Half way through when I could see my Waratah was wilting, I announced that we should not see the final sketch as an end in itself, but what really counted was the focuses on the work as personal fulfillment for the artist and as a valued meditation within. TSH just chuffed.

Verdict: TSH did a very decent attempt but overall, my natural flair for Australianism beat his Swedish ass. Or by this stage of the night, it could have been the wine.

Pathetic

Winner: Lou Lou!

And speaking of winners!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ‘LAURA B’ FROM USA, WHO WON OUR CUSTOM MADE SONG GIVEAWAY!

Laura B has requested a fun children’s song for her son’s next birthday!!!! Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!