Painting and Alice's Good-bye

This is the oil painting I did of the same subject as my 8x10 acrylic. I like this one better, probably because I am having a good time learning to use oil. This one is 18x24, done over an anonymous unsold painting from last year's Paint Eastport Day.

I started this at Sydney's on Wednesday, and finished it late this afternoon after picking up my blue car at the garage in Lubec. I called Alice this morning before Toni came to practice the recorder and learned that she is going to Connecticut on Tuesday. Because Toni arrived immediately after the conversation and then took me to get the car, I didn't have time to react to hearing the news I have been dreading for so long. As is my custom, I behaved as if nothing was wrong, talking and laughing while the phone call burned in my brain. Once I was alone in the car, the news washed over me and I absorbed it until it took over my entire being.

I won't see Alice again.