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Watercolor Fairy

Member since 2006 · Posted 21 Feb 2006 · 6 comments

(one I wrote a while ago) Tesa takes flight, no time to tarry An artist song she serenades Not with voice, but by flutter Wings whistle, watercolor cascades Around the painting, blessings she bequeaths Delineating colors, running free By splashes of rain droplets from her eyes Hues battle for territory From a tiny bag of glitter, she sprinkles salt to texturize, with a lilting laugh, out forms a rainbow pallet, crystallized a brush of ultramarine blue she spins the color wheel to blend soft wash of Indian yellow a dance of magenta and alizarin Dashing across the paper Iridescent her gown flows She settled, a dew upon a petal To dry with a kiss she blows Tesa only appears at twilight Elfish ears and dreamy eyes To transform the artist efforts The morning brings her sweet surprise

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6 comments

[8] Ranger 21-Feb-06/8:18 AM Reply

Nice, made me think of the children's story about the elves and the shoemaker, I think. It was a shoemaker, wasn't it? Anyway. Not only do I see the fairy in this dancing round the picture, I also see the artist doing the same during the day - Tesa could easily be a small child as well, giving the picture the sort of imagination that only childhood can (does that make sense?) I love the idea of hues battling for territory, although I'm not sure that 'battle' fits the feel of this piece - maybe something like 'jostle' would work better? Also I'd change 'a dew' to 'like dew' - or even just get leave out 'a'.
You get the imagery spot on here.

[n/a] Scarlett › Ranger 21-Feb-06/11:01 AM Reply

Yes, "jostle" is better. And leave "a" out completely... Glad you liked the imagery. I love to paint with watercolors but you never know what it truly is going to look like till the next day, because it dries 20% lighter.. used to laugh and say that I had to wait for the watercolor fairy - hence the poem.

Thank you, Ranger, for your suggestions.

[8] zodiac 21-Feb-06/3:17 PM Reply

Try to avoid reversing normal word order, like in "blessings she bequeaths". And easy way to do that - to, say, get "bequeaths" at the end of the line instead of blessings - is to enjamb. Try:

Around the painting, she bequeaths
blessings, plots colors, running free
By splashes of rain droplets from her eyes
Hues battle for territory

[9] lmp › zodiac 20-Apr-06/2:09 PM Reply

no offense, zodiac, but the rhytm worked better (for me anyway) with the "odd" word order as originally written. i like when i come across that in a work; the subtle difference is a nice word play.
in this case, the enjambing (thanks for the terminology) disrupts the flow, and since she is writing about watercolor here...

[9] lmp 20-Apr-06/2:11 PM Reply

like this on a lot. then again, i have done a bit of watercolor and acryllic painting, so i guess i can feel the flow.
nice use of color choices and fanciful imagery. you captured the little sprite at work quite nicely.

[9] lmp › lmp 20-Apr-06/2:20 PM Reply

i also agree with Ranger's suggestions; jostle is better...