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Having bought the colours, an easel, and a canvas, the next step was
to begin. But what a step to take! The palette gleamed with beads of colour;
fair and white rose the canvas; the empty brush hung poised, heavy with destiny,
irresolute in the air. My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto. But after all the
sky on this occasion was unquestionably blue, and a pale blue at that. There could
be no doubt that blue paint mixed with white should be put on the top part of the
canvas. One really does not need to have had an artist’s training to see that. It
is a starting-point open to all. So very gingerly I mixed a little blue paint on
the palette with a very small brush, and then with infinite precaution made a mark
about as big as a bean upon the affronted snow-white shield. It was a challenge,
a deliberate challenge; but so subdued, so halting, indeed so cataleptic, that it
deserved no response. At that moment the loud approaching sound of a motor-car was
heard in the drive. From this chariot there stepped swiftly and lightly none other
than the gifted wife of Sir John Lavery. "Painting! But what are you hesitating
about? Let me have a brush - the big one." Splash into the turpentine, wallop
into the blue and the white, frantic flourish on the palette - clean no longer - and
then several large, fierce strokes and slashes of blue on the absolutely cowering
canvas. Anyone could see that it could not hit back. No evil fate avenged the jaunty
violence. The canvas grinned in helplessness before me. The spell was broken. The
sickly inhibitions rolled away. I seized the largest brush and fell upon my victim
with Berserk fury. I have never felt any awe of a canvas since.
Excerpted from Painting as a Pastime by Winston Churchill. ©1932 Winston S. Churchill
Painting is complete as a distraction. I know of nothing which, without
exhausting the body, more entirely absorbs the mind. Whatever the worries of the
hour or the threats of the future, once the picture has begun to flow along, there
is no room for them in the mental screen. They pass out into shadow and darkness.
All one’s mental light, such as it is, becomes concentrated on the task. Time stands
respectfully aside, and it is only after many hesitations that luncheon knocks gruffly
at the door. When I have had to stand up on parade, or even, I regret to say, in
church, for half an hour at a time, I have always felt that the erect position is
not natural to man, has only been painfully acquired, and is only with fatigue and
difficulty maintained. But no one who is fond of painting finds the slightest inconvenience,
as long as the interest holds, in standing to paint for three or four hours at a
stretch.
Excerpted from Painting as a Pastime by Winston Churchill. ©1932 Winston S. Churchill