Faldoni, parts 2456 - 2459

 2456. But it wouldn’t have mattered if Faldoni had a huge sheet of good paper because he had a more serious problem. He did not have a single idea in his head to use as the basis for painting the walls of his room. This odd problem had never crossed his mind during the time he was gathering all his materials and plastering his walls.

 2457. Somehow he thought that when it came time to actually paint, a good idea for a painting would come into his mind as if by magic, and he would just sit down to work and execute it just like a servant doing the bidding of his master. 

 2458. It certainly is very odd that this most difficult and perplexing problem, the shipwreck of so many artistic and creative endeavors, is often not even considered until the moment of truth arrives. The moment of truth is that time when, after all the careful preparation of the materials has been done, the first marks have to be put down onto a piece of paper.

2459. The paper may be blank for a long period of time, and then the hopeless new artist puts down a few chicken scratching sorts of marks with a pencil, and just as swiftly erases them out, and looks around in fear lest someone notice such impossibly stupid shapes. What was supposed to be a face looks more like an unbaked lump of bread. And who does not begin by attempting a face?