This is not a false alarm, this is not a test.

22" x 15", watercolour, 1998

I wait a lot –usually by myself and usually because I'm early, but sometimes because I'm kept waiting for various reasons. Sometimes I'll be prepared to wait and I'll bring music to listen to or a book to read, but there are still many times when I don't have anything to occupy myself with and I just have to sit (or stand) there...waiting.

I suppose the title (taken from a line in the Rush song "Red Tide") endows the situation with a certain tension, but depicting the tedium of waiting is really what I was really going for. I should have just called it "Waiting".

She's extremely orange because I had yet to get a blue filter for my camera, and long-ish exposures using incandescent lighting gives photos a yellow hue unless corrected –and I was still not yet skilled enough to colour-correct in the painting stage (I learned, though, after too many yellow people!). So I apologize for the hideous skin tones here.

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