Drawing a line

I am a tentative man.

Faced with a blank canvas, I am scared of being too definite, too quickly. So I sketch faintly with light strokes and a nearly dry brush. And I keep working at it until the final line emerges, shyly, from the canvas.

And, when, as sometimes happens, I am interested in one of my models, I take that slowly too. And wait to see how things turn out.

But with her, I want to paint decisively. I want to capture her with one, bold, sweeping line.

I wait. My brush, loaded with black paint, is poised above the blank canvas.