I left high school determined to become a wizard. I know how foolish that sounds. The beginning of wisdom is learning how big a fool I naturally am. So, having learned that I am a little fool (after years of humbling experience I know better than to call myself big), I had to pursue arcane knowledge and magic spells to become a wizard. I began to experiment with all kinds of ideas and all sorts of media. But it was the humble colored pencil where I discovered the most arcane power.
Let me tell you about how I cast a recent magic spell.
As with any wizard work, it begins with a book, a tome of significance discovered in the course of a book-finding quest. It was a book that I found in a Goodwill store, an antique book that describes in children’s book form how an archeologist uncovered the life and ultimate demise of a place in the distant past called Pueblo Bonito.
I learned about the place and the people, especially the children because, after all, that’s who the book was written for. So, the next step was to pull together the puzzle pieces I needed for a little bit of Paffooney magic. Paffooney, you may recall, is a magical made-up nonsense word useful for artistic incantations. I consulted a book that I myself created, a scrapbook of poems, snippets, and visual ideas. I call it Rage after the Dylan Thomas poem about raging against the dying of the light. It is full of scraps and pictures that I can use as models.
I sketched out the plan in light pencil, too light to really pick up in the photo. When I begin the detail work, I take it area by area, starting with the most important piece, the primary figure’s face.
As I moved along, I had to color in the primary figure first trying to carefully create a light-source pattern mostly consistent with my model. It is coming from near-noonday sun shining down into the Pueblo from the top right of the frame.
I discovered when it was too late that I missed the proper proportion on the right arm. I gave the poor girl a Popeye arm. But she will just have to live with the deformity. At least I didn’t goof as badly as Victor Frankenstein did on his creation.
The figure needed to be completed first since the the light patterns in the background would have to be keyed to it in a way that keeps those elements pushed back into the depths of the picture.
The background will contain three more figures, the two child figures will be more obscured than the main figure and far less detailed. The adult figure will be a mere shadow in the darkness of the Pueblo walls. A touch of blue sky will finish it all and give it primary completeness (red, yellow, and blue in a picture make it feel complete because these are the primary colors of paint).
I am left with the completed spell, a Paffooney I call “Pueblo Bonito”. I signed my name backwards, dated it, and now it is time to look at the finished spell and let its gentle magic work on my soul.
