Faldoni, parts 2536 - 2539

 2536. He would have been quite happy to simply use Venetian Red and some white like the Egyptians always did but one day he tipped over his jar of Earth Green and some of the pigment got into his flesh color and made it look better. Why a little bit of green helped his color so much he did not know, but it became an important part of his formula.

 2537. One evening he was especially tired as it was late. He was in the middle of painting a very difficult three-quarter portrait which he had named, “Father Franklin.” He did not start out to paint a portrait of Father Franklin, but he named him that because the painting was giving him such a hard time, just as Father Franklin always did. 

 2538. He had painted almost all of the face, going from left to right, (Faldoni was left handed by the way.) Just before he finished the right hand side of the face he ran out of his flesh tone and hurriedly mixed up a new batch, but he was so careless and inattentive that he mixed up two parts of white to one part of Venetian Red.

 

2539. He was almost done with the outside edge of the face using his new color when he noticed his mistake. This is how tired and careless Faldoni was: he was putting color on his painting and all the while hardly looking at it, since he was practically falling asleep. Suddenly he saw what he was doing and jumped up from his chair in disgust. There was only one thing to do, scrape it all out and start over again, but instead he left it as it was and went to sleep instead.