Will Had A Way with His Quill

Will Had A Way with His Quill

Even as a young, naive boy,

Will had a way with his quill.

His mother would shout

from the room across the hall

put that candle out,

once and for all!

But forge ahead the precocious writer sped,

he had so much he needed to get down with his feathery pen.

In his clever mind, scampered ladies and lads,

their stories needed to be told, both happy and sad.

He knew not why he needed to act thusly,

his desire to express exactly the words needed

made him seem quite fussy.

William could hear when his characters pleaded,

"Write beautifully our most hidden actions and thoughts, 

your labor in the future will reveal how richly you succeeded."

So he abided, much to his mother's chagrin,

the call of the mighty muse, 

plucking aside her reprimands like strings on a violin.

His fingers stained with ink, his eyes made bloodshot still

A wordsmith always would he be,

for Shakespeare obeyed the will of his quill.

Gossipy Creatures (SOLD)

This piece has been sitting on my desktop for quite awhile.  I coated some cardboard with some modelling paste still on my fingers from another painting I had done and didn't want to scrape it back into the jar.  I worked on it, set it aside, picked it up again when I wanted to paint, but didn't want to launch into anything major.  I've worked and worked on this little piece.

I wasn't sure how it was going to shape up or what it was, but it started to emerge from the background of paint smears I had put on it.

I call it "Gossipy Creatures."  I wanted to make the figure on the left not look so intent, I considered making that mouth upturn a bit, but I liked the worried/distant look in it's eyes, so I left it alone.  Maybe I was influenced by my co-worker, Crystal's, recent reading of Othello for her reading class.  That bird has a little glint of Iago, me thinks...or not. ha!

Just got back from walking the dog before I head off to work.  I was thinking about Othello while I wandered. I remember my high school English teacher, Miss Driscoll, having us read that play and requiring us to memorize long passages of Shakespearean verse, soliloquies filled with elaborate language beyond our capacities, but then upon comprehension, within our means.  God bless those teachers who filled us with terror and demand, who pushed ourselves and our brains.  We are always capable of so much more than we think or are required to do.