3-point perspective with its too static lines. 
Painting en plein air—the scourge of vision. 

Dull sticky layers of Damarr varnish 
suffocating dancers on a kinetic canvas. 

Coquetry and croquet 
on a green summer’s lawn. 

Blue-lake skies strewn with titanium-white clouds. 
Putti on ceilings. Zeus in the bedroom. 

Snakes in Eden. Ready-to-sell paintings 
with no tasty bits of visible underpainting. 

Trompe l’oeil; still lives with dead oysters. 
Patrons who decide what I should paint. 

P.S. “What a horrible thing yellow is.” E. Degas

Publisher’s Note:

The quotation by Degas in French, quelle horrible chose que le jaune, is from his Notebook 18, as referenced on page 96 of The Notebooks of Edgar Degas: A Catalogue of the Thirty-Eight Notebooks in the Bibliotheque Nationale and Other Collections, Volume 1 by Theodore Reff (Hacker Art Books, 1985).

(Merci beaucoup to Professor Yeasting for her help with locating this information! The quotation in English is ubiquitous online but does not include the original source.)

Jeanne Yeasting

A writer and a visual artist, J. Yeasting is an admirer of life’s absurdities and the extraordinariness of the ordinary. She lives and teaches in Bellingham, Washington. Her work can be found in numerous places, including Puerto del Sol and the recent anthology, Last Call. She has never met a writing prompt she didn’t like.