The Spectator

There are certain things that are hard to sit by and watch. You know what I mean: someone untying a knot, someone trying to straighten a picture. You just want to get in there and take over, do it yourself (if you want something done right, do it yourself).

But maybe because it's so unrelated to anything I could do better myself, I love to watch Sam draw or paint. It is endlessly fascinating to me. When we were engaged I used to sit for hours watching him draw (I know, what kind of date night is that?---it's just that he often had a lot of work to do, but don't worry, we still had our date nights), even boring things, like dragon scales: scale after scale after scale after scale.

After we got married he still had to work on drawings at home sometimes, but after a couple years I was usually putting kids to bed or nursing some baby or trying to practice the piano or whatever, so I didn't really have those long uninterrupted times where I could just watch him.

But the last several weeks, Sam's been working on a project for Christmas presents [I'll post it after Christmas], so I've been able to watch him draw again. And it hasn't ever stopped being amazing. I love to watch the unexpected colors he chooses; the way they build from surprising and out-of-place---to sort of starting to make sense---to suddenly inevitable and exactly right. I expect him to pick brown for a tree trunk---but then there's blue and grey and green and red and it's so much more right than brown would have been. I love the way that something looks done to me, and then he brightens it, or adds a few strokes here or there, and suddenly it's better. I love the way he builds up a texture with his brush, the brushstrokes jarring and defined at first, and then gradually receding into the background as they, too, become right and real-looking. And then the way that all of this---the tiny details, the textures, the colors, the lighting, the shadows---disappears into the entity of the picture itself, and becomes unnoticeable as you get the picture's full effect, as you become involved with what you see and forget to wonder just how each brushstroke was painstakingly laid down, how each highlight was meticulously applied, and can only think of how awesome the picture is and how it has transported you into its world.

Amazing.