Barnes and Noble and a Sunflower

Sunflower and Pencils
Originally uploaded by bmgarner

I recently listened to author James Patterson on a podcast and since I've never read one of his books, I thought maybe I would check him out. So I went down to Barnes and Noble. Turns out James Patterson is probably Stephen King's nearest competitor in terms of sales and proliferation of books.

But here's my secret: I never buy books at B & N, though I do love going there. What I do is write down the title of the book and how much B&N want for it, then go home and check out the prices at Amazon. Amazon almost always wins out: sure I have to wait a while to get the book, but so far that hasn't damaged me in any way.

So, after checking out James Patterson, I dallied over to the magazines and went to my favorite section: art mags. I pulled three off the shelf and found one of these comfy chairs that are becoming, slowly, more and more difficult to find in B&N, and thumbed through the magazines.

In one of the watercolor mags, don't remember which, this sunflower popped out, so I sketched it out in my pocket moleskine and brought it home. A couple years ago my grandaughter received a packet of colored pencils for a Christmas gift. The packet still had the price on it, so I offered her more than that and she agreed to see them to me. The asking price was one dollar.

So, when I got home I immediately forgot that I recently purchased a set of Prismacolor pencils, and completely colored this sunflower in with the cheap ones. I wasn't too happy with what was going on because they weren't going on in that smooth, creamy, fashion the Prismacolors do; then I realized I had f____d up.

So, I got out my Prismacolor and went over the top of the cheap-o's. It came out ok.