The Artiste (inspired by 71)

[Erthona]

[b]The Artiste [/b](inspired by 71) (edit 1.o1 Eluoh , ellajam)

 
He paints with oils:
a scene more or less recognizable.
Two couples in white tennis garb
sitting down at an outside table
just off the court;
a little red wine
to sate the thirst,
and petit fours for hunger.
All of this laid out on a white table cloth
under a large blue and white umbrella.
When the artist is finished
painting
he lays the canvas flat:
takes a large brush sopped in turpentine
and begins to dab the canvas.
Doing so until it takes on the superficial appearance
of what he believes
looks like an impressionistic painting.
 


The Artiste (inspired by 71) (Original)
 
He paints with oils:
a scene more or less recognizable.
Two couples in white tennis garb
sitting down at an outside table
just off the court;
a little red wine
to sate the thirst,
and petit fours for hunger.
All laid out on a white table cloth
under a large blue and white umbrella.
When the artist is finished
painting
he lays the canvas flat:
takes a large brush sopped in turpentine
and begins to dab the canvas.
Doing so until it takes on the superficial appearance
of what he believes
looks like an impressionistic painting.
People who know
no more about impressionism
than he
tell him that it is grand.
So, he is easily able to shuffle aside
the few distracters that pop up on occasion.  
 
 
–Erthona

 
©2014

[Eluoh]

The Artiste (inspired by 71)
 
He paints with oils:
a scene more or less recognizable.
Two couples in white tennis garb
sitting down at an outside table
just off the court;
a little red wine
to sate the thirst,
and petit fours for hunger.
All laid out on a white table cloth
under a large blue and white umbrella. (This sentence is missing a subject.  What is all laid out?  Is it the previous scene mentioned or something new?)
When the artist is finished
painting (I like the line break that leaves "painting" isolated.  It adds more emphasis for me.)
he lays the canvas flat: (I'm not sure if putting a colon here is appropriate to present the next couple of lines, but I think that's a personal preference for me.  It still works.)
takes a large brush sopped in turpentine
and begins to dab the canvas.
Doing so until it takes on the superficial appearance
of what he believes
looks like an impressionistic painting.
People who know
no more about impressionism
than he
tell him that it is grand.
So, he is easily able to shuffle aside
the few distracters that pop up on occasion.   
 
 
–Erthona

 
©2014

The first half of this was great with its imagery, but the last half got boring for me as it turned into what seemed more like a basic lecture.  I did enjoy the simplicity of this, and there were only a couple of things with punctuation and sentence structure that gave me minor issues.  Nice job.

[Erthona]

Thanks Eluoh,
Thanks for giving it a read. I woke up in the middle of the night, and it demanded to be written, so I did and went back to sleep. where you comment that the sentence may be missing a subject, I was afraid that might occur. The word "all" was intended to be the subject referring to all of the objects that had just been mentioned. I was trying to avoid a statement such as "all of this" or all of these things", as it just sounded clunky, but I was worried that just "All" would be unclear although I have certainly heard it used in common usage, something like (the detestable), "are you coming with", which of course drops the pronoun.
At what part do you think it gets preachy? I'm thinking of cutting the last 8 lines, and re-writing the last two before that. Something like

"dabbing the canvas until it begins
to take on the appearance of
impressionism.

or

"dabbing at the canvas until it becomes
more impressionable."

I think I like the second one best.


Both still do what I want them to do, but more subtly. 

What do you think?

dale

[ellajam]

I think the last six lines can go, but I think I need "what he believes looks like impressionism." That's where I understood and didn't need the rest.

[Erthona]

Your wish is my command.

Dale