The Muse Returns.....

I caught a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look, she was standing there leaning against the door jamb. Back lit, her hair seem to be shot through with strands of glowing gossamer. She looked ethereal and other-worldly.

It was my muse, returned from a walkabout.

"Have you been creating?" she asked.

"No. I haven't had the time" I replied back. It was then that I noticed her crossed arms and the slight frown on her face. Trouble brewing. Trying to head it off I said, "Look, I've really got to get this video edited. I also have the tradeshow to get ready for and more classes to schedule."

She pushed away from the door jamb, and strolled over to the desk where she gently closed the laptop.

"To the studio. Now. You were suppose to be doing a memory sketch of the butterflies from Brahma Island. In fact, you promised" she quietly reminded me. Risking her wrath or another disappearance, I retorted, "Yes, well, I've not been on a walkabout for the last....how many weeks has it been now?"

Leaning back against the door jamb, she cocks an eyebrow. "Really? I could have been standing on my head in your studio singing Christmas carols at the top of my voice and you wouldn't have known it." She was right. Busted.

"Come on. Let's go," she said, heading out of the office.

"I don't have any of the photo refs printed" I called after her. She stuck her head back around the corner and said, "Yes.....and? It's a memory sketch. You don't need photo references."

"All I can remember about them is a vague, hazy impression. I have no idea what they looked like nor the flowers. I'm sorry, but I'm going to need the photos," I said.

This earned a sigh, and I do mean a long, heavy sigh. The likes that would make the champion sighers of the world, the Irish, proud to call her one of their own.

"Fifteen minutes" was all she said as she disappeared. "Wait a minute...." I responded to empty air. "You heard me" floated in from the other room.

In the fifteen minutes allotted to me, I managed to print two photos as well as find the name of the butterflies and the wildflowers they were sitting on......I could see her hand in this because ordinarily it would have taken hours of research.  

I stomped past her with my materials, headed for the studio. Exactly 15 minutes later. I was rewarded with another cocked eyebrow and a slight smile. [Mona Lisa has nothing on this one, I thought to myself.] Again, she was playing at her muse "thing" because there was my sketchbook, right where it was suppose to be. It's never where it's suppose to be.

I got comfy in the studio chair and started to sketch.....and time fell away.

She wandered in to look over my shoulder but made no comments.

Hours later, I realized she had slipped away. Unnoticed.......

Watercolor and Ink

6 x 8 inches

Nature Sketchbook