Throughout the past week I've been speaking with Richard, also known as "Captain", the local homeless man who lives behind the local car battery shop. In my mind I have 4 paintings of him, full body portraits, about 5 and a half feet high and 3 and a half feet wide. I have been biting my lips over this, but "Captain" has been busy cutting weeds and mowing lawns to survive, especially in the muggy heat. I ask him, "Are you sure you will allow me to paint you? I do not want to invade." He tells me, "O I don't mind, its just that I've been busy, but I will catch up with you, don't worry." He sits there on his crate stooL making a cigarette, pouring it in, his last match doesn't light. He reaches into his back pocket and finds another book there, it wasn't his last one. Since I could sketch him out with charcoal, we talked about the Transfiguration and the Demon possessed boy afterwards, well I told him about it, just to see how he would react to it, or if the gospel has any meaning, or is it all lost. When it was all over, he proceeded to care for his garden.

Van Gogh wrote about on a few occasions that I know of, about the lack of models in his life, how it was a struggle to work without models, the demands of models, the pay, and how when he got lucky to have a model, he probably paid them to little for the time he was with them. I Sort of felt that tonight. I Hope the time will come for me to paint "Captain".