Avoiding The Vietnamese At Starbuck

I waited for the Vietnamese artist to leave before I started this.

The last time he watched me, I was experimenting with rectangles and triangles.

I don't think he could even stand it.

Once he grabbed a pencil out of his pocket and started drawing over my drawing.

And the worst thing is that we *cannot* understand each other.

From day one he tried to teach me to draw using rules of perspective. And I refused and drew crooked. Not so much on purpose, but I just want to get better by practice, not perspective rules or techniques.

Another day, I was drawing and he stopped by and motioned with his hand that the table cloth I drew was not symmetric. I tried to explain, and he kept motioning. I took my pen and made the table cloth look horrifyingly crooked... and then looked at him... like a defiant child.

I've never seen such a look of disgust!

To make things worse, I flipped the piece of paper and started doing this Jim Madden drawing of Starbucks and Christmas... and dollar signs... and this evil drawing of Our Lady Of The Bucks... full of arrows... A star on the Christmas tree... then X-ed out... then put on her head... Etc.

He went from disgust to scared, I think.

And since then, I've been totally embarrassed to see him. He always reads the newspaper, and I always bring in my drawing stuff. And there is no way, other than getting a Vietnamese friend (which I have) to explain to him... but I *still* think, in his native tongue, that he wouldn't understand. I think he'd keep saying, "But it is crooked."

I hope two things happen: 1) He feels better about his art 2) That eventually, I'll whoop something good out that impresses him.

One day I showed him a tiny drawing I was proud of and he said, "Easy."

In all fairness, I think he was trying to help me. Like I say, I'm just embarrassed.