Can I Paint Beautiful Paintings If My Hair Is Awful?

I slept well, so I have energy. I have eaten a good breakfast, so I have strength. I have lost a stone and a half, so my body looks better. But - my hair is too long and shapeless and the colour is brassy. I am undone. I feel the whole of my world is mirrored in my hair which makes me look like Worzle Gummage, I feel that everyone else (should they see me, I am hidden in my studio all day and resisting putting a paper bag over my head with eye holes for me to see the Ross Family Portrait and the paints) agrees.

So can I paint beautifully with bad hair? Will all the Rosses with their thick blonde healthy hair in nice styles (mine is healthy, just awol) suffer from my Hair Distress? I don't know. Being nearly 49 years old, I might by now have learnt to detatch myself from these teenage traumas. Maybe if I put some lipstick on and turn the mirror in the studio to the wall, and practice a bit of a John Wayne type swagger, I can fool my mind into thinking I am one hell of a fancy artist, with enough attitude to make me irresistable and that my hair is part of this. My hair is just chicken feed next to the fact that I can paint and have no self doubt whatever (swagger swagger, curl of lip, mirrors to the wall) and the Rosses will come through the painting process as winners.

For the record, the American Beautiful Family who are having their Jesus on the Tube are also natural blondes except for the Dad who I painted painstakingly yesterday and when I had finished saw that I had painted Stalin. For goodness sake, how did this tall handsome dark haired (only dark haired member of his family) clean shaven father of three and husband of the utterly wonderful Paula, become Stalin? He has been rescued and is now himself but I blame the hair problem (mine). Thank God I worked it out. Actually, recently the Honeymoon painting had a similar hicup, the kind and gentle Jeremy turned into Clive James and I had to put that right.

I am going to the hairdressers tomorrow at 9am. Until then, anything could happen.